Book Review: ‘Never Hide from the Devil’

2026-02-09 - 16:47

N.T. McQueen’s Never Hide from the Devil is not merely a historical reconstruction; it is a jagged piece of shrapnel from 1915 Van, pulsing with the frantic, localized energy of a city under siege. Through Suren Simonian’s raw and fragmented journal, the narrative avoids the sterile distance of an epic panorama, opting instead to lock into the wide-eyed, sensory unraveling of a boy watching his world catch fire. The prose itself mirrors this urgency, landing with a rifle’s recoil — taut, sharp and unforgiving. McQueen masterfully captures the transition of Van from a vibrant hub of Armenian culture into a suffocating perimeter of survival. The “City of Memory” is transformed into a landscape of tactical necessity, where the familiarity of childhood alleys becomes a labyrinth of life-or-death courier routes. By centering the story on Suren, the author forces the reader to confront the genocide not as a statistic of “20,000 dead,” but as a series of intimate betrayals and impossible choices. It is a coming-of-age story forged in the furnace of annihilation, where the playful exuberance of the “Big Guns” is systematically stripped away, leaving behind the hardened resolve of the fedayi. This is a chronicle of a stand against oblivion, documenting the moment when childish games must yield to gunfire’s grim cadence, and where the act of remembering becomes a radical form of resistance against an empire intent on erasure. The core of the story ignites with the “Big Guns.” These aren’t polished soldiers but schoolmates like Nshan, the bespectacled thinker who reminds them that dogs that fight each other will join against the wolf, and the brawler Razmik, still scarred from St. Boghos scraps. Alongside the missionary orphan Mihran and the pint-sized Shushi, they are thrust from eavesdropping at St. Boghos to couriering for Professor Manukian. Amid oghi-toasted shouts of “Adana! Adana!” for the 20,000 slaughtered, they move through the city like ghosts. Their missions range from the lighthearted “Saved by a Cat” escapade to Raz’s square heroics defusing live explosives. The banter is a shield against the dark, as Shushi growls, “How are you going to fight off the whole army, Razmik?” while even the women begin to wield rifles. Homefront rifts only deepen the dread. Inside the Simonian house, Mama sweeps despair like khash scraps, trying to maintain a domestic order that no longer exists. Taline sneaks off to assist with nursing and surgeries under Melkon, sharply warning Suren, “Don’t do anything stupid,” while Ani barters secrets in a desperate bid for her fiancé’s safety. The return of Levon adds a spectral layer to the house; he arrives in a Turkish gendarme uniform, haunted by Urmia ghosts, muttering “So many ghosts,” and the unknown fate of their brother Narek. Vartan, the scholarly father, provides the moral anchor during the harissa debate, declaring: “This land is Armenian land... Centuries before the Ottomans set foot on this earth, this was the Armenian Kingdom. Lake Van was one of the three mighty lakes of Armenia. And it has been stolen from us again and again. If we flee to the east out of fear and abandon the home of our ancestors, then the Turks don’t have to kill us to have won. They will say, ‘Look at how they run away when we come.’ Just like we always said. If we run, they have already defeated us.” He chooses to stay and fight despite Mama’s pleas, a decision underscored by Uncle Tarzi’s gravelly wisdom: “Never forget who you are... And never, never, hide from the devil.” This sentiment is echoed in the dying Hovhannes’ chant for “holy freedom.” The atmosphere is heavy with the weight of Armenian history. Ararat broods eternal, with the story of the chained Artavazd brewing vengeful storms, while Lake Van’s ghosts haunt the empty markets where cats prowl abandoned stalls. The violence is visceral, turning the dust into “dark, bloody mud” after a blast. Even Father Zakarian’s spiritual guidance, preaching that “light will overcome the darkness” via three candles, temporarily feels fragile following the square slaughter of Araxie and Siroun. When Mihran falls into a coma, Shushi’s humming of Tikranakerti Ororotsayin at his sheeted face is a heartbreaking reminder of the childhoods being extinguished. The novel reaches its crescendo as the dawn pyres over Shamiram signal the end of the siege and the beginning of a different kind of agony. The ragged flight east toward the Russian lines is a haunting image of a people uprooted, where survival feels less like a victory and more like a heavy, permanent burden. As the epilogue unfolds, we see the “City of Memory” abandoned, with carts laden with the fragments of a civilization: brass samovars, holy books and the shrapnel of memory that Suren carries from his fallen friends. McQueen’s spare and searing prose ensures that the exodus is not portrayed as a neat escape; the rescue is “temporary” and the shadow of the desert looms large. The titular philosophy to never, never hide from the devil serves as the ultimate anthem for the Armenian spirit. When Taline murmurs “We survived” as the Armenian flags snap against the flank of Ararat, the line carries the weight of those left behind in the “dark, bloody mud” of the city. It is a vow to carry the story forward, a commitment to the unblinking vow to memory that Suren makes in his journal. It suggests that even when the geography is lost and the homes are burned, the identity remains unyielding, so long as the truth is told. McQueen has crafted more than a novel; he has created a literary monument to the defenders of Van, proving that resistance lives in the refusal to be silent and that memory — when wielded with this much conviction — is the most unyielding munition of all.