An Evil Cradling

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It reveals a depth of spirit, a nobility of character and the sheer belligerent will that enables one to fight in the face of inhumane behaviour as well as a sadness at how far short we often fall. This book is a testament to humanity, though not the idealised view of humanity in which we "ride above adversity because in the end the human spirit wins out. This is not just a book about being captive: this is a psychological study into understanding your captors. I would recommend this book to anyone - the writing and language used is superb (notwithstanding some ‘strong’ language used, mostly under extreme circumstances) and despite the traumatic nature of the experience, the story is oddly encouraging.

I couldn't bear to part with my book, even to lend it to someone, so I bought another as a gift for one of my daughter's-in-law. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.Throughout the isolation, degrading treatement and abuse, Brian never lost his compassion for others "We cannot know ourselves or declare ourselves human unless we share in the humanity of another". His sisters were flown by Irish military executive jet to Damascus to meet him and bring him home to Northern Ireland. Keenan's story of captivity and exposure to a very broken segment of human society is highly topical in this day and age.

Scarcely two weeks after his arrival, he was kidnapped by fundamentalist Muslims and was subsequently imprisoned in a solitary confinement compression chamber, six feet. This is a personal piece of writing dealing with his personal experience, and it was written during a time of recovery from the incident itself. This book then is like a map on the life of the soul, marking the primal, wild, less travelled territory, frightening extremes of humanity's collective madness, need of redemption, and maybe even charting a way through it into compassion, brotherhood and community. The first half of the book describes his time in solitary confinement, and it is a vivid, gripping account. Then he was captured by fundamentalists on his way to work, and taken to a prison cell that was smaller than most bathrooms.There he was handed over by the Syrian Foreign Ministry to the care of Irish Ambassador, Declan Connolly. While the second half of the book, his time in captivity with another hostage, does not quite live up to the intensity of the first hundred pages or so, it is still well worth reading. Like a good meal or sermon, you want to glean every last nuance and morsel from it ensuring that nothing is lost, that it all sinks in.