A Farther Shore

Starred review from November 3, 2003
Born in Belfast in 1948, Adams has spent his entire life in the nationalist movement and immediately states that he was never a member of the IRA; he similarly denies that Sinn Féin is "the political wing of the IRA." Northern Ireland politics is always a complicated array of facts and contradictions, but Adams has done a workmanlike job of defining events and personalities. He puts the 1988 Gibraltar assassinations of three IRA members squarely at the feet of Margaret Thatcher. And while he excoriates Thatcher and her ilk, he embraces Nelson Mandela ("the greatest political leader of our time"), Steve Bilko, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Rosa Parks and Ho Chi Minh as mentors and heroes. The Good Friday Agreement is at the book's heart. There are many heroes, including Nobel laureate John Hume, Irish Prime Ministers Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair and, most prominently, Bill Clinton. Adams shows how he and his cohorts reached across the Atlantic for help and support. It was Clinton's unilateral 1994 act granting Adams a visa to enter the U.S. that started the peace process rolling. Adams takes us step-by-step through the tense negotiations, which culminated in the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Adams's eighth book is suspenseful, biased, subversive, blunt and often funny. Edifying for both the neophyte and the veteran observer, it will open eyes as to how this master politician thinks and operates. Photos not seen by PW
. (Nov. 11)

Forecast:
Adams's tremendous popularity among Irish-Americans, national media appearances and a five-city publicity tour should make
A Farther Shore an appealing Christmas buy in the Irish-American community.

November 1, 2003
Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, widely seen as the political arm of the IRA, writes his version of the history of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, an achievement for which Adams feels the IRA deserves full credit. In his eyes, the Brits and the Unionists are liars and killers and the IRA are heroes, though some of their more blatantly innocent victims earn Adams's apologies. Early on, after calling on the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., Adams declares that Sinn Fein doesn't advocate violent struggle-and promptly salutes the IRA's years of bombings and killings. Political struggle among Sinn Fein, the Social Democratic Labor Party, and British PMs occupies much of the book. President Clinton and a hapless-looking George Mitchell surface during treaty negotiations, and David Trimble, the Unionist leader who persuaded Protestant Ulster to approve the agreement, earns grudging mention. There are truths in Adams's book, but they require distillation. His account of being shot is dramatic, and his spare humor isn't bad. The most original portion is Adams's account of the priests who help in the struggle despite the Catholic Church's official opposition. As a primary source, this autobiography should be acquired by public and academic collections.-Robert Moore, Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging, Billerica, MA

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2003
Although a complete end to the Troubles will require decades of healing, 1998's Good Friday Agreement between the Irish and British governments proved to be a significant step toward peace in Northern Ireland. Nudged along by George Mitchell, Bill Clinton, and the world's spotlight, Downing Street relaxed its longtime unwillingness to negotiate with Sinn Fein, and the IRA relaxed its longtime unwillingness to cease fire. This book is Sinn Fein president Adams' account of a quarter-century of progress and setbacks leading up to the agreement. It also takes issue with the conventional British and media wisdom that Sinn Fein is the "political wing of the IRA." Rather, Adams' Sinn Fein is a social-justice-minded political party that shares the objectives of the IRA while eschewing its violent means, and Adams himself is a passionate yet ultimately peaceful patriot. But violence, by both the IRA and the unionist paramilitary, punctuates his narrative, adding urgency and keeping feelings of progress in check. Yet there's always rhetorical distance between Sinn Fein and these violent acts. Packaged for posterity? Perhaps. But not to obscure the point: this is a story about peace. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)