I don’t care what you say.
This one will, at least at first, make you feel a bit
uncomfortable. In the tradition of the
best alternate history fiction, Matt Ruff uses The Mirage to turn history on its head in a way that makes one think. American readers, in particular, will be
forced to do some soul searching as they make their way through the mad journey
that Ruff has prepared for them.
The Mirage, you
see, begins on 11/9/2001 just as a group of Christian fundamentalists highjack four
Iraqi airliners. Two of the jets crash
into the World Trade Towers in Baghdad, one into the Arab Defense Ministry in
Riyadh, and one heads for Mecca but, before it can reach its target there, passengers
manage to crash it into the ground.
Soon, the United Arab States (UAS) are waging a payback war on terror
and have invaded the East Coast.
Washington D.C. is turned into a Green Zone safe haven for the invaders
who are ruthlessly attacked almost every time they venture outside its
protected perimeter. Eight years later,
the invaders are still there, hoping to leave a stable government behind before
they call the war done.
Ruff softens the shock of this jarring setup by creating
several sympathetic Iraqi characters tasked with the mission of stopping
further Christian terrorist attacks on Iraq and the rest of the UAS. Mustafa al Baghdadi and his cohorts spend
their days tracking threats and terrorist cells, hoping to stay one step ahead
of the fundamentalists who want to bring more mayhem to the country. So far, with a lot of luck, they have been
successful. But when Mustafa, during one
of his arrests, finds an old newspaper that a suspect has hidden away, his
world is shaken.
This is not just any old newspaper. It is a back issue of The New York Times dated 9/12/2001, and it tells a surreal story
that Mustafa cannot comprehend. Surely,
it is a hoax; it has to be. Then other
captured terrorists begin to tell stories similar to what is in the newspaper,
and Mustafa starts to doubt the world he lives in. Is it all a mirage? If it is, who is responsible and how did they
do it?
Matt Ruff |
Readers will enjoy the way that Ruff uses the main players
from the 9/11 murders in The Mirage. Most of them are there, but in entirely new
roles – some of which are guaranteed to offend as many readers as they will
please. More intriguingly, others who
had no actual connection with events following 9/11 participate here in key
roles: David Koresh, Lee Atwater, Timothy McVeigh, and Terry Nichols, among
them. Although some will skip them, Ruff
uses clever Wikipedia-like entries as chapter-breaks that should not be ignored
because they fill in the narrative blanks, making it easier to understand this
strange new world.
The ending Ruff chose for The Mirage, however, is weak.
His story, and his readers, deserve better. Based upon the rest of the story, it is
difficult to argue that the ending is too fantastic to be taken seriously (and
the argument cannot be attempted without straying into “spoiler” territory). But it is, and it lessens the impact that I
belief Ruff was going for in The
Mirage. That said, do not miss this
one because it is still one of the more intriguing novels you will encounter in
2012.
Rated at: 4.0