A Review of Thomas Mullen’s “The Revisionists”
Time Stand Still
It seems elementary that, by now, most people who are not sociopaths would be willing to go back in time to prevent COVID-19 from ever happening. However, imagine, if you will, that your job was to go back in time and prevent other time travellers from disrupting and changing the future. You know, your job would be to make sure that COVID-19 still would happen. That’s basically the premise for Thomas Mullen’s The Revisionists — minus the COVID-19 angle. It’s the story of a man named Z. (or Zed) whose job is to protect the perfect society he lives in by going back in time and eliminating those who would want to alter the course of history. In doing so, these time travellers would prevent things such as the Holocaust, 9/11 and something this tale calls the Great Conflagration — a period of intense warfare where many people will die, often violently, but will result in the perfect utopian state that Zed lives in.
The Revisionists is a zippy, gripping, and roller-coaster ride of a tale. However, the time travel angle isn’t the only thing going for it. It is home to a bevy of subplots where characters cross each other’s paths, and then double-cross each other, making who’s playing who to be a bit of a challenging matter. The subplots involve a former CIA agent named Leo who meets the abused maid of South Korean diplomats in a grocery store, then is — par his job as a defence consultant — told to follow her and gather intel on her keepers. Leo is also tailing a lawyer named Tasha, who may or may not have been a whistleblower of some sensitive defence documents and is grieving the death of her brother in the war overseas (Iraq or Afghanistan, at the time this book was written). Tasha is also involved with Zed, though Zed has assumed the identity of a man who has gone missing — and meeting up with Tasha is a no-no for him in the eyes of his “employers”. Is Zed developing a conscience, and will he fight back against the utopian state that hired him?
As you can tell, this seemingly straightforward science fiction tale lands in the murkier waters of the espionage thriller. It really gets tough to parse character motivations and why someone might decide to do something as backstories don’t generally get revealed right away — and even when they do, they’re still confusing. As much as The Revisionists is a time-travelling thrill-ride, rife with questions about paradoxes and whatnot, it is also an examination of how contractor agencies are scuttling democracy in America by skirting around laws that government agencies must follow. This, and the fact that the book references now-defunct wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (but not frequently naming them by name), makes the novel a little dated by now because other concerns have arisen that are arguably more serious and deadly since then — such as presidents who create fake news and essentially lie to people. This novel is an X-Files aficionado’s wet dream circa the year 2011.
However, there is a lot of good reason to read The Revisionists today even if it does seem a little out of time. For one thing, the novel is populated with persons of color. Tasha is an African American, the maid is Indonesian, and even Zed could be said to be a mixture of black and Vietnamese blood that makes his skin color hard to parse. Perhaps the reason for the relative dearth of white main characters, save Leo, says something about the message of the book and who it was trying to reach. However, Mullen (who is white) effectively nails the color barrier and makes you believe that these characters are real, authentic, and true to life. It’s a rarity where a white author checks his privilege at the door, which makes The Revisionists all the more readable.
Plus, even though the comings and goings are a little hard to follow, so you have to go with it and wing things, this is a thrilling and exciting tale. It never goes on longer than it must, and it gradually reveals motivation like an orange being peeled whose peels are dropped to the floor messily by the peeler. This isn’t so much a time-travelling tale or one about dystopias masquerading as utopias or even about private contracting wrongdoing. This is simply a balls-to-the-wall, pedal-to-the-metal tale that just lets it rip and lets it rip wildly. That said, it does pause to allow you to catch your breath by becoming almost philosophical in spots. (The question of “Is there a God?” even comes up.) If the novel hadn’t done such a good job of being so contemporary that it would date itself in another decade, The Revisionists could be considered an almost classic piece of fabulism or a book that deftly skirted genres with great aplomb.
I particularly enjoyed The Revisionists, though it can be a tough read because you have to wonder in spots if the book is so thrilling because it is pre-determined to hit certain buttons to ensure that some characters won’t escape from a very messy demise. There’s a course of fatalism running through the book. However, The Revisionists is entertaining enough and packs enough panache that one wonders why this wasn’t turned into a Hollywood movie back in the day. It’ll certainly make you forget about the miseries of COVID-19 even though it may make you think about the pandemic and if some cruel agent of fate ensured that it came to pass without any efforts to contain it by certain actors. Maybe that’s being a bit too science-fiction-y for reality, but The Revisionists is that kind of book — the one that asks “what if?” and then turns the answer on its head. An enjoyable, heady read.
Thomas Mullen’s The Revisionists was published by Mulholland Books on September 28, 2011.
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Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
