A review by emmaliborski
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

challenging dark informative tense medium-paced

4.5

This is such a special, immersive, informative book. I'm a sucker for history books that are, in some way, about the idea of history as a concept, and the final chapters of this book dive into these questions in such a pertinent and satisfying way. How can a society move on when people feel that they've been robbed of the justification of their actions? How can something be "in the past" when people are afraid to add their experience to historical record? What role should the state play in processing national trauma? How should it be held accountable?
 
“Think of the armed struggle as the launch of a boat, Hughes said, getting a hundred people to push this boat out. This boat is stuck in the sand, right, and then get them to push the boat out and then the boat sailing off and leaving the hundred people behind, right. That’s the way I feel. The boat is away, sailing on the high seas, with all the luxuries that it brings, and the poor people that launched the boat are left sitting in the muck and the dirt and the shit and the sand, behind.”