Apeirogon

APEIROGON

by Colum McCann

 

Nominations: Booker Longlist 2020, BookTube Longlist 2021, Carnegie Longlist 2021, Dublin Finalist 2021

 

Date Read: December 8, 2022

 

Apeirogon is a shape with a countably infinite number of sides, much like the conflict between Israel and Palestine. McCann masterfully blends fact and fiction to create a rich picture of this conflict and present it in personal terms through two families, one Palestinian and one Israeli, and the losses they have amassed due to this never-ending saga.

 

Bassam is an Israeli, who has been fighting the Israeli occupation his entire life. He has served seven years in prison, enduring beatings and humiliations, losing a significant portion of his life to atone for what? After he is released, he makes the commitment to himself to longer be political, to no longer take a side, to hear out his “enemies” in the hopes that they will see the humanity in each other and come to some sort of peace. And then he loses his beloved daughter, Abir. She is shot in the back of her neck with a rubber bullet, shattering her skull and killing her slowly over the course of several days. The hole she leaves in his heart and life is immeasurable.

 

Rami is a Palestinian, who has also been fighting against the Israelis his entire life. He is a committed family man and committed to protecting his land. And just like Bassam, Rami loses his daughter, Smadar, to a suicide bomber, killing her instantly. His grief is so vast that he seeks solace in other parents who have lost children, which leads him to Bassam. The two instantly see a mirror in each others’ eyes, severing the enemies they should become and allowing friendship to grow in their grief.

 

Bassam and Rami’s friendship of course brings ridicule: They are both traitors to their causes. They clearly don’t care about the future of Israel/Palestine. They are disgusting and an abomination. Yet, these two’s unlikely friendship is one small step towards peace in a region that so desperately needs it. 

 

I am in shock and awe at McCann’s ability to build a framework of fact and fill in the holes with fiction, putting forth his point of view and shedding new light (for me anyway) on this decades long conflict. He put a “human” face to the loss and atrocities both sides inflict on each other. While I have read Let The Great World Spin and believed it to be a remarkable work of art, Apeirogon blows it out of the water. 

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