Bound by tragedy

With "Yalo," Khoury returns to Beirut in the 1980s with a book that is a series of jagged narratives shifting in time, location and point of view. The novel gives us, like pieces of a puzzle, the story of Daniel Jal'u, nicknamed Yalo. He is a soldier who, after 10 years spent on one of the many sides of Lebanon's sectarian civil war, gradually becomes a deserter, a thief, a vagabond in Paris, a night watchman in Beirut, a traitor to his benefactor, an arms smuggler, a voyeur and eventually a rapist. Then Yalo falls in love with the young Shirin, and that single act of affection ends in his capture; she turns him in to the police and accuses him of rape.

An interrogator sits Yalo down and orders him to confess to all his crimes, but every time Yalo tells the story of his life, the interrogator interrupts him, accuses him of gaps and inconsistencies and threatens him with torture. "You know what happens to liars," he warns. The result is that Yalo has to start his confession anew, again and again. It is these successive and contradictory confessions that the novel gives us, almost without preamble. It soon becomes clear that the interrogator wants a very specific confession: one that contains not only Yalo's real crimes of theft and rape, but also crimes he has not committed, like planting bombs.

Given his actions, it's initially impossible to feel any sympathy for Yalo, but as he is forced to confess, and as we hear different versions of his life, our empathy grows. We learn how a young Christian boy, growing up in the home of his grandfather Ephraim, an ascetic Syriac priest, and his mother, Gaby, a romantically frustrated woman, became involved in Lebanon's long and bloody civil war. This war -- any war -- changes people, and its effects on Yalo are soon apparent. He is not just a soldier in one of the many sectarian factions; he is a victimizer of his countrymen and a victim of torture himself. Khoury's great talent lies in his ability to let us witness the making of a monster, but without giving us the possibility of judging him or feeling morally superior to him.