The First Friend (Malcolm Knox, A&U)

When a novel begins with historical maps of the Soviet Union, a timeline of events, and character lists, there can be some trepidation about whether the commitment required will be worthwhile. In the case of The First Friend, Malcolm Knox rewards the reader’s commitment with a disturbing and grimly fun ticking time-bomb of a thriller about workplace survival in the upper echelons of the murderous Soviet bureaucracy. In his exploration of the ‘indentured friendship’ between Lavrentiy Beria—the cunning head of Stalin’s secret police—and his ‘dumb driver’ (the fictional Vasil Murtov), Knox seems to be responding to the current fractious relationship between truth and reality in politics. Reading of the impunity Beria enjoys in ‘the one car that won’t be searched’ while processing news headlines about a US presidential candidate whose criminal conviction seems to mean little, it’s hard not to take Knox, a Walkley Award–winning journalist, seriously in his suggestion of parallels between 1938 Soviet Russia and the present day. The comparison is supported by his observations of pre- and post-1917 revolution generational dynamics, which echo today’s generational rifts as if in a funhouse mirror. The First Friend publishes in the middle of a year full of world-altering elections and global tensions, and thoughtful novels like it, which carve out a space to reflect on the present by way of the past, really do feel—to use the tired phrase earnestly—urgent.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Melissa Mantle is a bookseller with a master's degree in literature. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

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