New Zealand soldier David Monroe helps a Turkish doctor, Mahmoud, who is fighting to save a boy’s life. Then a shell bursts nearby, sending them both to the same military hospital. Mahmoud is a Sufi, a whirling dervish with many tales to tell. As the bond between them grows, will David betray his country to help Mahmoud escape home to his family?

I didn't enjoy the way this book was written, nor how it bounced back in forward in time. There were some interesting concepts here, but I had to force myself to finish it. ( )

Traitor is a sensitive exploration of the Anzac myth through the life of David Monroe, hero of Gallipoli and the trenches of France. While wounded, David takes it on himself to guard a young Turkish doctor, Mahmoud, who had been captured when the two of them were trying to save the life of an Australian boy. He forms a deep friendship with Mahmoud, who teaches him about Sufism and the poetry of Rumi. He decides to help Mahmoud escape to his home village, but they are betrayed by their Greek boatman. David is sentenced to death for desertion, but the war ends and he is pardoned.

David then returns to the quiet life of a shepherd in New Zealand, unable to ever make good in a society which never completely forgives him for his 'treachery'.

Traitor is Daisley’s first novel, and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award in 2011. Daisley is a West Australian writer who delves deeply into the Australian psyche. I found myself coming back to the book again and again, unable to put it down. The story begins with David being questioned by intelligence officers, a scene with a Kafkaesque edge, and then unfolds as the past impinges on the present.

I was impressed by the lightness of touch in the story-telling: it is beautifully crafted, and the reader is rarely aware of the mechanics of the story. I felt I was in David’s world, and that the little things in his present really did touch off his memories. I felt I could taste the cold in the New Zealand air and smell the after-birth as he moved about the lambing flats, and I felt nauseated by his descriptions of death in the trenches, and genuinely moved by his love for Mahmoud and Sarah.

I am looking forward to diving into Stephen Daisley’s second novel, Coming Rain. ( )

Sorry just couldn't get into this at all. The idea that the plot was based on was good - the author just couldn't pull it off for me. It went back and forth in time, the choice of minimum punctuation meant it took me a while to figure out what time frame I was in. Things happened without explanation.

The book won a swathe of literary awards so must be a good read for some people - but was not for me.

A great premise, where a NZ soldier (David Monroe) befriends a Turkish prisoner of war in World War I, and finds his supposed loyalty to his country tested by the bonds of friendship. This book spoke eloquently of the horrors of war, and particularly - as highlighted in wookie's review - the difficulties of returning 'home' to decimated rural towns afterwards, and meeting the mothers of boys you'd seen die. I did appreciate these aspects, but the way it was written (the peculiar rhythms of speech and flashes backwards and forwards) didn't work for me, and overall I didn't appreciate the novel as much as I had anticipated. Nevertheless, it was interesting and evocative. ( )

This book opens in Lemnos in 1915, with New Zealand soldier David Monroe badly wounded. He will live, but will be scarred. It then suddenly jumps ahead fifty years, to when David Monroe is dying of a sudden heart attack. As he dies, he sees an old friend, Mahmoud. The book then proceeds to fill in the gaps in this fifty year span. It turns out that David was convicted of treason during WW1, when he helped a Turkish prisoner, Mahmoud, with whom he had formed a friendship to escape. David is condemned, but escapes capital punishment because the Australian soldiers, obviously fed up with the futility of the war and being used as cannon fodder by the British command, refuse to kill any New Zealand or Australian soldiers. He then becomes a conscientious objector and serves out the rest of the war being a stretcher bearer on the Western Front in Europe.

For me though, that was all just a set up for his return home to rural New Zealand, and the portrait of a country reeling from losing so many young men. Every family in his small town has lost someone, and sometimes all their children. And sometimes he had been witness to their deaths on the Western Front, and so becomes a lifeline for bereaved parents who are desperate to hear about their boys.

David said sorry. No. Tried to smile. Could not look at her. Saw only the pearl earring on her left ear. An old fashioned pale grey hat. A black hatband. Hated the look in the mothers' eyes. Crazed, like the look of the mares when the foals were separated for branding, a white-eyed rolling desperate look, capable of anything. Or the made ewes at docking, frantic, tongues blaring for their lost lambs. You couldn't...
It didn't bear thinking about.

The friendship between David and Mahmoud is also thoroughly explored. Mahmoud is a fascinating character, a doctor educated in England, a Sufi and a whirling dervish, a man of peace. Their friendship is short, but is deep and is obviously an important turning point in David's life.

This was a brilliant first novel, beautifully written (if you don't mind the lack of punctuation!), and I've barely scraped the surface of what it's all about. I think many other readers would take home different aspects; they may be more moved by Mahmoud and David's friendship; or the scenes in the trenches; or Mahmoud's story; or David's later life. But for me, it was the depiction of a country and society devastated by a war so far away from them that really rang true and spoke to me.

Complex, fascinating, an emotional rollercoaster. Recommended. ( )