BookSpin Review:

Consequence: A Memoir
by Eric Fair
Henry Holt
Hardcover



It is truly terrifying what a man can do when he becomes desensitized to the humanity of others.






TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION




Eric Fair was many things:


Seminary student


U.S. Army Arabic linguist


Police Officer


National Security Agency employee


Employee of CACI, civilian military contractor




He was also in a young, struggling marriage and  ill enough to be a candidate for a heart transplant.




CONSEQUENCE, his new memoir, is a story with more plot turns than a Hollywood blockbuster.  It seems to me that Fair has a love-hate relationship with most things in life.  His journey through his religious beliefs and seminary studies is rife with what came across to me as tinges of doubt or hesitation.  He also had a long-standing dream to be a police officer, which he achieved after his Army stint but before having to give it up due to his medical condition.


He worked at the NSA only a brief time. He was itching to get back to Iraq, to paraphrase, 'finish the job'.  He heard about a company that was serving as a military contractor in Iraq conducting interrogations on detainees.  The civilian company didn't require a physical, they only cared about his training in Arabic linguistics and his Army experience in Iraq.


Much of the story of CONSEQUENCE is the moral struggle that Fair goes through. It is obvious to me that he has was always looking for something he couldn't quite name and this explains his religious search.  He knew he wanted to help people, and always thought being a police officer would satisfy this desire. However, the stories he tells about his time with a badge clearly show his growing disenchantment with that profession as well.


The book really becomes whole when he goes back to Iraq with CACI.  He participates in what can only be defined as torture against the detainees.  He witnesses many other tactics and is complicit in his silence.


The lesson from CONSEQUENCE is what we learn from observing Eric Fair's journey to the end of the book.   This is not a Hollywood happy ending, where everything is tied up nicely at the end -- there is no stated "moral at the end of the story". Instead, the reader is left to contemplate the facts he has learned and to come to grips with them, much like Fair himself.  This is a brave author who has written this book.


Reading this book as a veteran, I say Fair's voice is spot on.  He describes the motivations and even the thought processes of a person caught in the morass of war. 



The writing of this book was cathartic for Fair, I'm certain.  The reader is asked to take on the moral questions the writer has been dealing with all along. As I said, this book doesn't answer the questions, it restates them for a new audience. For this and many other reasons, CONSEQUENCE is an unsettling book -- one that should be read by hawks and protestors alike.  This is not the story you've heard anywhere else.  And, if it weren't true, you'd have a hard time believing it.


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I received an advance reader copy of this book from Henry Holt, for my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.  -- BookDude