Foregone by Russell Banks

 

Foregone by Russell Banks.

Published 22nd June 2021 by No Exit Press.

From the cover of the book:

At the centre of Foregone is famed Canadian American leftist documentary filmmaker Leonard Fife, one of sixty thousand draft evaders and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam. Fife, now in his late seventies, is dying of cancer in Montreal and has agreed to a final interview in which he is determined to bare all his secrets at last, to demythologize his mythologized life. The interview is filmed by his acolyte and ex-star student, Malcolm MacLeod, in the presence of Fife's wife and alongside Malcolm's producer, cinematographer, and sound technician, all of whom have long admired Fife but who must now absorb the meaning of his astonishing, dark confession.

Imaginatively structured around Fife's secret memories and alternating between the experiences of the characters who are filming his confession, the novel challenges our assumptions and understanding about a significant lost chapter in American history and the nature of memory itself. Russell Banks gives us a daring and resonant work about the scope of one man's mysterious life, revealed through the fragments of his recovered past.

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Foregone is a stonker of a novel that centres around the life of Leonard Fife, a cutting edge Canadian-American documentary film maker, famous for fleeing to Canada to dodge the draft for the Vietnam War.

Fife is now in his seventies and suffering from terminal cancer - something that has made him reflect on the life he has led. When Fife is asked by a former mentee of his Malcolm MacLeod, now a film maker in his own right, to take part in a filmed interview to answer questions about his life's work, he reluctantly agrees, with the proviso that his wife must be present throughout. But when the filming begins, the words that pour from Fife are quite unexpected, and rather than follow the line of questioning MacLeod has laid out, he has an agenda all of his own - to tell the truth about his past.

What follows is a compelling account of Fife's life and the secrets he has held close for so long; interspersed with the interview in the present, as his devotees hang on his every word, and his wife is filled with incredulity at his, sometimes surreal, claims. To Fife's mind, he needs this chance to lay the truth bare to the one woman he truly loves, as a confessional and act of atonement for the sins of his past, while everyone else is convinced that his memories have finally failed him.

This book is beautifully written, and although I have not read any of Banks' previous work, it is easy to see why his books have twice been Pulitzer Prize finalists. Although I found it hard to like Fife given his confessions, laced as they are with episodes of his life where his chosen course of action was to fabricate his own reality and run away from his responsibilities, Banks' words are an absolute tonic to read, gliding silkily across the page and into your head - the mark of a true craftsman.

Banks examines a fascinating period of American history in this novel, bringing a real sense of time and place around those living under the shadow of the political turmoil of a country involved in a conflict that even now defines so many lives - the Vietnam War. Through Fife, we run a whole gamut of opinions and experiences, told in a style that echoes the writings of his literary heroes, such as Jack Kerouac, and there is an unmistakeable 'On the Road' feel throughout the piece. But what makes this such a delight is the plain and simple fact that Fife is such an unreliable narrator - how much of this tale is really true given his state of mind, his physical condition, and the feeling that he is inherently someone who has trouble facing up to the truth? Is this actually a observance of last rites to cleanse the soul, or is Fife finally treating his audience to a narration of the Great American Novel he has held within him for so long? I am still not sure, but there is no doubt that this is a modern classic in the making, and it was an absolute joy to read.

Foregone is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Hollie McDevitt from Oldcastle Books for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Russell Banks, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize with his novels Cloudsplitter and Continental Drift, is one of America's most prestigious fiction writers, a past president of the International Parliament of Writers, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous prizes and awards, including the Common Wealth Award for Literature. He lives in upstate New York and Miami, Florida.