The Revisionists

Before I read West Australian author Michelle Johnston’s new novel, The Revisionists, I knew almost nothing about the geography, history and culture of Dagestan. I assumed it was a country, but as Johnston points out, Dagestan is in fact a region: one of seven republics of Russia that make up the North Caucasus. The novel also documents the more recent religious and ideological conflicts and incursions to which the republic has been subjected, as well as its vibrant and hospitable culture and the rugged beauty of the landscape. But The Revisionists is so much more than a travel guide, as it were, to an exotic location. It offers both an intriguing political plot and a psychologically compelling exploration of guilt and the provisional nature of memory. The novel is also fundamentally concerned with the use of language as a political weapon, and how silence can be either an evasion of the truth and a means of resisting oppressive forms of power. Above all, this ambitious and absorbing novel asks us to reflect

The Revisionists is seen from the perspective of a self-styled conflict correspondent, Christine Campbell. We learn in a series of flashbacks that, impelled by journalistic ambitions as a young woman, she was fired from her job on a newspaper for using her sex appeal to curry favour with more senior male member of staff. Humiliated and adrift, she is offered a lifeline by her childhood friend Frankie, now working as a doctor in the fictional village of Khumsutl in Dagestan. Here Christine begins to find a sense of purpose, helping in the medical clinic and running a first aid course for the local women. What complicates this invigorating time, however, is her desire to tell the stories of the women who have suffered the grievous losses of war, and who seem to intuit another and imminent armed conflict. Christine’s newly acquired sense of female solidarity is tainted by her continuing desire for fame; a moral failing which will have disastrous consequences for the innocent.

At the heart of this absorbing and lucidly written narrative is the secret of the source of Christine’s guilt. While a series of increasingly disturbing flashbacks gradually reveals her compromised actions in Dagestan, the novel ultimately has another shock in store about her more recent status as a Pulitzer Prize shortlisted writer and the widow of a wealthy hedge fund operator. The Revisionists is particularly skilled at implicitly contrasting Christine’s lavish, self-absorbed lifestyle in New York with the impoverished but community-minded life of the citizens of Dagestan. In doing so, it effectively asks us to reflect on the cost of ambition and how, if it all, reparation might be made. 

The Revisionists is Michelle Johnston’s third novel and is in my view her best yet. It’s a suspenseful page-turner, a morality tale, and a tribute to the power of journalism to reveal the terrible truths about war.

I’m looking forward to talking with Michelle about her new novel at the Lane Bookshop on Monday 28th July. Please check the Lane’s website for bookings.