Remembrance of Things Past

Remembrance of Things Past is a work of doomsday fiction set in a modern, mythical country in West Africa. A sequel to To Seek a Newer World, the novel's major characters acquire their new personas during an inter-ethnic civil war that devastates their homeland: Daniel Rutherford as an observant chronicler of his times, Felix Kamara as an ambitious alcoholic and incurable romantic, and Maureen Rutherford as a resolute divorcée and fortune-hunter. In this streamlined novel, Robert H. Brown presents a gloomy picture of a society dogged by sectionalism, ethnicity, "ethnic cleansing," and how warlords and rebels take part in indulgent killing, wanton destruction of infrastructure, and dwelling homes. He also depicts a society in which innocent children and civilians behave and act to the privations of wartime because poverty is grimmer and more widespread. As the novel ends, Daniel Rutherford and Felix Kamara are seen strapped in their seats in British Caledonian on their way to their homeland from involuntary exile in England to help in the construction of peace and amity on the ruins of the tragedy of war. Remembrance of Things Past is a magnificent story of passion, love, betrayal, ambition, and pervasive violence.