Mr. Jones by Margaret Sweatman is a Canadian spy drama set in the 1950s and 60s when McCarthyism and paranoia was rampant, the Cold War was well underway, John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson shared the political stage in Canada, and the CIA was reaching its long arms into every country. This is the story of Emmett Jones, war vet, Japanese expert and member of External Affairs, who suffers the indignation of being investigated by the RCMP and the FBI, repeatedly. The question for the reader is whether he’s a spy or just idealistic.
Emmett Jones is a Canadian born in Japan, who fought in WWII with Bomber Command, and was disillusioned by his involvement in the bombing of German citizens. Post-war he meets a young idealistic man named John Norfield whose Communist ideals are of interest to Emmett. Smart but directionless, Emmett appears to be “trying on Communism” but still questioning the merits propounded by the zealous supporters he encounters. Plus there’s a woman he’s hot for who is in the mix so his intentions are opaque.
Norfield disappears and Emmett gets the girl. Emmett has joined External Affairs to focus on Japan, and I’d love to say they live happily ever after but Emmett is recalled from his post in Japan, is accused of espionage and later investigated.
As the book description says: “Evoking the classic works of le Carre and Greene, Sweatman’s novel is a shattering exploration of a past where world governments threaten annihilation while training housewives in the proper techniques for sweeping up radioactive dust.”
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Sweatman’s setting for the novel is a fascinating part of Canadian history that is often under taught in schools in lieu of America’s more colourful involvement in the Korean War, Vietnam, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. But it’s also the early days of NORAD, the construction of the Berlin Wall and the arms race. Pearson’s involvement in the peace process is noteworthy and an interesting backdrop to the personal drama of Emmett Jones.
“Set in the 1950s and early 1960s, a period of rampant paranoia, Mr. Jones peels back the polite veneer of Canadian society to reveal a nation willing to sacrifice its own. A time of fear, a time of ‘peace’ at the onset of the nuclear age, it is the era of McCarthyism, when governments alleged there was a communist under every bed and a traitor in every friend.”
Is Emmett a spy or not? Is his wife? Is his bestfriend? Is the Japanese man who he befriended a spy? Will that man reveal the great secret they share? The wonderful thing is the tension Sweatman creates with the what ifs but also the layers of possibilities infused in the writing. Emmett Jones is a man with two lives. He has two families: a son in Japan born to his lover, and a daughter born in Canada to his wife. The birth of his son predates his marriage but remember this is the 1950s and things certainly would not have been easy for his son. Do his scruples in love reveal duplicities elsewhere in his life?
Mr. Jones is a fantastic piece of historical fiction, and a top-notch spy drama, set in Canada.
Buy it from Goose Lane Editions: http://www.gooselane.com/books.php?ean=9780864929143