South by Babak Lakghomi

Published by Dundurn Press/Rare Machines on September 12, 2023

“What is considered innocent today may not be so tomorrow.” That Kafkaesque explanation for B.’s plight sets the tone in South, a novel in which authoritarian rulers censor books, erase their critics, and change the rules without notice.

The time and place in which the novel is set is never identified. That choice underscores the risk that authoritarianism can arise at any time in any nation.

After a drought, men moved south to work on oil rigs. Those jobs won’t last because oil production is exceeding demand. Steel factories and refineries are closing. Strikes are shutting down industrial cities; union leaders have mysteriously disappeared. Independent fishermen can’t compete against the big industrial ships. Wells are going dry; fresh water is scarce. Diseases have spread for which medicine had no cure. The legendary people of the wind perform rituals to drive diseases from the body. Whether the rituals work is a matter of opinion or faith.

B.’s father brought unions together. B. is writing a book about his father to help him understand his father’s disappearance. His mother believes his father left to protect the family. B. knows he won’t be allowed to write about his father’s union activism, but the publisher has sanitized the first chapters to make his father unrecognizable. The last book B. completed was about storks, but he had to avoid mentioning the environmental destruction that is wiping them out.

Now B. is driving south because his Editor asked him to write a report about an oil rig. He is to write what he sees or learns from the workers. The assignment puzzles B. but he wants to please the Editor. The Company has given him permission to visit but isn’t cooperating with his investigation.

B. is stymied by the resistance of workers to his interview requests. He gets information from an assistant cook who disappears. He watches a man set himself on fire. Otherwise, he has little to write about and he's afraid to send his editor the few facts that are worth reporting. He hides his notebook but it soon disappears.

Eventually B. is imprisoned on a ship and isolated. He is forced to write whenever he’s awake. He doesn’t know what to write, but his interrogator implies that writing is the key to his freedom. It is more likely the reason for his imprisonment. The interrogation is designed to reshape B.’s thoughts, to sever him from his identity. Only after the interrogator believes his will is broken does B. see other prisoners on the ship, including a woman he encountered on the rig. Even his silent efforts to commune with her are thwarted, or so it seems to B.

When B. narrates his backstory, we learn that he drinks too much, makes poor choices, and has low self-esteem. He lives with Tara but had an indiscreet moment with a woman he met in a bookstore. He receives a package on the rig that suggests the encounter was a setup. Then he receives unsettling news about Tara. He doesn’t know if anything he learns is real. His experiences are eventually indistinguishable from hallucinations. His dreams merge with visions that merge with reality.

Kafka’s vision of ordinary innocents trapped in the bewildering absurdity of authoritarian rule never loses its relevance. It probably won’t be a spoiler to suggest that authoritarian rule will leave B. a broken man. Breaking people is the point of authoritarianism. Is there a possibility of recovery from such damage? The novel provides no clear answer but leaves room for hope.

Late in the story, characters debate the best response to authoritarianism. The media is state-controlled and the news can’t be trusted. Protests lead to tear gas and beatings and confinement. The state relies on terror to control its citizens, but it can’t lock up everyone. When it locks up writers and other people with known faces, it sparks more protest.

In the long run, perhaps resistance is not futile. “Working within the system” can be perceived as cowardice or selling out. It can also be seen as self-protection or a strategy of incremental change. These debates are relevant to people who live under authoritarian rule. They’re also important to people who recognize the danger of electing authoritarians in a democracy.

South is published by a Canadian publisher, but Babak Lakghomi’s home country is Iran. He understands how government propaganda is used to control and confuse. Trump’s press secretary presented “alternative facts” when confronted with real facts, a small example of how misinformation is wielded as a tool of government even in a relatively free democracy.

Lakghomi tells his story in a minimalist style from the perspective of an unremarkable protagonist. Those choices assure that nothing distracts from his powerful reminder of how authoritarianism can creep into any environment and change the life of any person who makes even a small effort to question authority.

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