Book Review

In this epic journey through brutalized, fractured communities within the Democratic Republic of the Congo, award-winning writer Mark Jacobs presents an intense and poignant novel of vulnerable outsiders at the peripheries of hell navigating inter-ethnic quarrels, government corruption, and the aftereffects of European imperialism. Jacobs, a former foreign service officer, is a prolific short story writer and author of six books, one of which won the Maria Thomas Fiction Award. His newest, Silent Light, offers a suspenseful though frequently harrowing account of a valiant displaced American and a Congolese orphan brought together by chance, braving the harsh complexities of a region tarnished by disease, disaster, and several decades of rampant violence.

The moving narrative begins with an engineer, known simply as Smith, winning a poker game at a French diplomat’s home. Smith, a thirty-seven-year-old American from Louisiana, works at an oil rig near Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, in central Africa, but plans to return to the U.S. and marry his lover Maybelline Beaudry. Unfortunately, greed keeps Smith from enjoying his poker winnings, ultimately undermining his employment and jeopardizing his future.

When one of the players, a Belgian named Alain Lajeune, confides to Smith an intriguing story in lieu of the money he owes him, it sets in motion an imprudent, incredible quest echoing Dante Alighieri’s poetic masterpiece Dante’s Inferno. Lejeune’s grandfather, an accountant for a copper mine, left him a stash of diamonds across the Congo River, somewhere in the DRC: the second-largest country in Africa. Lajeune has an official letter from the Ministry of the Interior in Kinshasa offering him safe protection in the DRC during his stay, but Lajeune is too indolent to pursue his inheritance. Smith is everything Lajeune isn’t, as underlined by the psychological evaluation conducted by his employer Dauphin Petroleum, describing him as “gregarious,” “bullheaded,” “hot-tempered, and quick to come to a judgment.” He is also a risk-taker who, when pushed, shoves back. Undeterred by the risks, Smith sets out for Kinshasa with the ministry letter, a bag of cash, and an agreement with Lajeune that they will split the diamonds fifty-fifty.

Jacobs’ taut prose and lucid portrayal of the inhospitable environment keep the reader alert to the relentless menace Smith faces the moment his ferry reaches Kinshasa. Thieves, ruffians, intrusive street children, a belligerent ANR agent, and other militant officials impede him every step of the way. Even the taxi drivers pose a danger: “They abduct their passengers and beat them up. If the passenger does not have enough money on him, they kill him.”

In point of fact, it’s a twelve-year-old vagrant named Béatrice who causes Smith the most trouble, eventually landing him in an utterly horrifying situation. Orphaned and living on the streets, she’s shunned within the community and viewed as a witch-child. Moreover, the vicious hatred between the Hutu and Tutsi populations means that her ethnicity incites conflict. Her intelligence, perspicuity, and courage impress Smith, and her innocence and defenselessness make him want to help, but his benevolent efforts to secure her a stable home are futile—the children at the nearby orphanage mistreat Béatrice, and she also refuses to return to her aunt’s home, regardless of her aunt’s promise to look after her.

Consequently, manipulation and sheer desperation lead Smith and Béatrice to form an alliance. Béatrice, guided by a desire to be reunited with her grandmother in Minembwe, a haven of the Banyamulenge, needs Smith’s help to get her there. As for Smith, Sister Placide, the canny elderly nun managing the Kinshasa orphanage, leads him to believe that Béatrice has valuable knowledge regarding what happened to Lajeune’s diamonds. Together, Smith and Béatrice embark on a tough, ill-advised expedition from Kinshasa to Goma, Bukava, to Uvira, finding a way past seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Strong-minded and stubborn, Smith refuses to heed the advice that peace musician Paul Kanea offers him: “You cannot save the girl, it’s not your place to try.”

Truth be told, Smith and Béatrice’s motivations are full of ambiguity, and the likelihood that either of them will succeed seems slim at best. Béatrice’s remembrances of her grandmother and her homeland are full of contradictions, and yet the vividness of her descriptions and her unfaltering resolve to see her grandmother implore Smith to aid her. He’s a man lacking direction, fueled only by materialistic goals, and though there’s “no logical explanation” for his selfless act, Béatrice’s vulnerability keeps him by her side. The further they journey together, the more devoted he becomes. It’s a union so strong, so tightly bound, that, for Smith, there is no escape unless Béatrice chooses to release her hold on him.

Complicated, intelligent secondary characters populate the landscape—the maddeningly analytical beast, Colonel Crispin Sikatenda, a “lion with ideas,” and the monstrous Mai Mai militias he’s created to renew the word of God in the lives of the disposed Bembe will scar the senses. Sikatenda’s fixation with getting his hands on gangster Mr. Eckstein’s pilfered gold mirrors Smith’s foolhardy obsession with Lajeune’s diamonds. They are both on a fool’s errand and headed into disconcerting darkness with scarcely a glimmer of hope.

Ruthless, challenging, and haunting, Silent Light is also a redemptive tale of integrity and accountability. Just as Sister Placide atones for the sins of her father, Smith is answerable for his country’s offenses. His passport is proof of his guilt, and his ignorance is a further afront. It’s his duty to brave the American nightmare, to bend and break and suffer Hades in order to see the light. In Jacobs’ hands, the light dazzles, and through enlightening dialogue and emotive, gut-wrenching situations he ensures that Smith’s epic, life-changing journey will linger in the memory.