cover image The Turning Over

The Turning Over

William McCauley. Permanent Press (NY), $24 (232pp) ISBN 978-1-57962-012-7

The current horrific news of atrocities in Sierra Leone gives McCauley's bland and undistinguished debut, about foreign aid workers in that country, a cachet it would otherwise lack. His jaded protagonist, Robert Kelley, has lived for the last few years in a remote village, smoking grass, sleeping with his 15-year-old maid and working with the local fishermen to set up a cooperative. Kelley has not fully burnt out, despite the imminent turning over of the cooperative to a corrupt government ministry. Alexander, Kelley's African rival and replacement, is a modern combination of technocratic civil servant and would-be Big Man. The culture clash between Kelley's dormant idealism and Alexander's guarded ambition is deferred, however, when Kelley is offered another development position in an ""aquaculture project,"" which guarantees autonomy from both the government and the chiefs but is located in a politically unstable region and brings him in touch with disaster. McCauley's novel reads like a Joyce Cary tale without Cary's nuanced characterizations or irony. Though Kelley's grim trip may miss the heart of darkness by a long shot, McCauley should be praised for depicting some of the paranoia that comes with political instability and a slight hint of the chaos that will follow. (Oct.)