A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali Book

We can all turn into killers, Valcourt had often maintained, even the most peaceful and generous of us. All it takes is a certain circumstance, something that clicks, a failing, a patient conditioning, rage, disappointment. The prehistoric predator and the primitive warrior are still alive beneath the successive varnishing that civilization has applied to mankind. All the Good and Evil of humanity is in our genes. Either one can emerge at any moment, as abruptly as a tornado can appear and destroy everything where minutes before only soft, warm breezes blew.

This was a tough one. A book that appears to have a range of ratings from 1 -5 and even a number of reviews where stars are absent. I feel that I can understand how this comes to be. (For example, the characterization of the Rwandans as being over-sexualized). A national bestseller in Canada and widely hailed by critics and fellow authors alike as something "to be read", but I also wondered(because I'm skeptical) if there was a better book out there to introduce readers to.

"A Sunday at the pool in Kigali" is about the 1994 Rwandan genocide. A subject that I've learned a little about. I watched Shake Hands with the Devil, watched countless interviews with Romeo Dallaire, saw Hotel Rwanda, my students and I had the pleasure last year of a Skype with Tresor, whose father was played by Don Cheadle in that latter movie. My grade 9-10-11 class and I even worked on a long distance project with a Rwandan school. Still I felt myself wavering every time I picked up this book. What exactly did Gil Courtemanche want me to feel?

You see, this cannot be placed in just a "sad" category. Nor can it be downgraded to a "violent" book. A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali oozes with the anguish left in the wake of Belgian colonization, the stench of government corruption, the callous nature of the Western governments that turned their backs on the raging epidemic of AIDS, and the climax of hatred that sets Tutsi against Hutu, neighbors against neighbors, and brother against brother.

Have you ever read a poem so powerful that you knew exactly the emotions that the poet is feeling? I sure know that I have! But many books that I've read, I never really knew what was on the author's mind until I reached their note section at the end. This I believe is what perhaps unsettled me while reading this book. I could feel that simmering, no, furious anger that was rising up from the pages. Because Gil Courtemanche is ANGRY and he wants his readers to know it. As a reader, that scared me, it unsettled me, it made me want to stop reading. But I couldn't. Because in reality, our fear, should never stop us from speaking up against the evil of humanity.

So I'm afraid this became more of a analysis than a review. I do believe that "A Sunday at the pool in Kigali " deserves the readers attention.