Book Review: Resurrection Day
Any person interested in history is often consumed with the thought of “what might have been”. What would have happened if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo? What if the French had settled what is now the Eastern Seaboard of the United States of America? What if the Maori had never signed the Treaty of Waitangi? Alternative History provides a rich vein of imaginative ideas for storytelling, exploited with great cunning by many a fiction author. Some, such as Robert Harris' Fatherland which poses the question of what would have happened to Europe and the Holocaust if the Nazi's had won World War Two, are considered masterpieces. Resurrection Day, by Brendan DuBois, deserves the same acclamation.
Resurrection Day is set some ten years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, centred around the the character of Carl Landry. The difference between our history and the history of Resurrection Day is the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In our timeline, President Kennedy enforced a blockade, resisted pressure to attack Cuba when a U2 reconnaissance plane was shot down, and negotiated a withdrawal of the Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba. In the timeline of Resurrection Day however, things go drastically wrong. An aggressive U.S. General takes matters into his own hands and retaliates for the downing of the craft, leading to an invasion, a nuclear exchange, and the deaths of millions of Americans as a result. Resurrection Day is set in the aftermath of this war, in which the surviving members of President Kennedy's administration are war criminals, and the U.S. is reduced to being a semi-despotic Second World state reliant on the goodwill of the U.K. while the European Powers reassume their dominance of the globe.
So what makes Resurrection Day such a good read? It is certainly a believable alternative history – it does not require a great shift in events as the turning point is a “nexus” point on the historical line (where the result hung in the balance). The characters in the story are human, realistic, and develop well through the progress of the story. Rather than presenting all the facts of the alternative world, the facts are teased out over the course of the novel. The story has competing factions exerting influence over events as they unravel. Admittedly Resurrection Day is a typical “conspiracy” style of novel as so often occurs in alternate histories (whether it be to overthrow an occupying power, or uncover a hidden conspiracy that goes right to the core of the government), but what exactly the mystery is and is not is never clear until the final pages. Indeed, DuBois leads the imagination along several different false possibilities before revealing the truth. The title itself is just as cryptic, not making much sense until well into the novel. Like Carl Landry, the reader is left wondering just who the “hero” of the story can actually trust as the story weaves and twists along its arc.
So what is wrong with the novel? Conceptually, not a lot. Only one or two characters are portrayed as being “totally evil”, probably because not a lot of attention is paid to them in their ancillary roles in the storyline. All the other “bad” characters are revealed to have other sides to their personalities, a welcome relief from the inept dual dichotomy that other adversarial novels often propagate. Perhaps the main flaw is that it (deliberately) leaves some questions unanswered, as one might expect in reality. While this lends to the believability of the novel, it does leave the imagination to run away with possibilities; for those who prefer novels that cross all the t's and dot the i's this will disappoint. Furthermore, one aspect of the ending is, while sentimental and nice in finishing the book on a happy note, slightly tacky and predictable given certain statements through the course of the book (it is a loose end that is tied up). Finally, if one has grave concerns about reading novels where “extra-marital relations” occur, then this book may not be for you (unless you skip the bits). It's only a minor point in the story, but it is there nevertheless.
If you are looking for a good alternative history then this novel is heartily recommended to you. You will struggle to place it down, I am certain. Do not be concerned by the subject matter – this is not an “apocalyptic” novel like Nevil Shute's On The Beach or the 1980s BBC docu-drama Threads (where a nuclear attack on Britain leads 15 years later to a medieval-level population living in a similar if not worse state of civilisation). It does concern the results of a nuclear war, however, and the upheaval to both American and global society as a result. Well written, powerful and compelling, but most frightening of all plausible, this novel is worthy of nine stars out of ten.
