FICTION

Half World

by Scott O'Connor
S. & S. Feb. 2014. 320p. ISBN 9781476716596. $26; ebk. ISBN 9781476716619. F
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O'Connor (Untouchable) creates a fictional account of the infamous CIA program that subjected unwitting Americans to mind-control experiments using drugs and other methods of brainwashing. The story begins in 1956 as the March family heads west. Under scrutiny since his boss turned out to be a double agent, father Henry has been banished to a new program in San Francisco, a fact to which his family is largely oblivious. The new program involves testing drugs on the clients of prostitutes, experiments that gain intensity and spiral out of control. Jump to 1972 and the viewpoint of Dickie Ashby, a young vet on the fringes of the MKULTRA program, whose own terrifying adventures will connect him to the remains of the March family.
VERDICT O'Connor is a gifted stylist, and he vividly captures the rabbit hole that swallows agents, their families, and their victims alike. The book works wonderfully as long as the March family remains the focus. Readers may get disoriented as it becomes difficult to distinguish victims from perpetrators in later iterations of the program. The story is fascinating, but readers will have to judge its authenticity for themselves: most of the MKULTRA records were destroyed by the CIA in 1973.
Reviewed by Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA , Jan 01, 2014
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