The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1/31/99
Country of Memory, reviewed by Peter Rock

Petir, the protagonist of K. C. Frederickís brilliantly disconcerting novel Country of Memory, works as a clerk in the Protracted Claims Department of the Pyramid Corp., somewhere in the shadowy lands of Eastern Europe.  The routine of his isolated life is shaken when he receives a phone call from Eduard, an old(and not particularly close)acquaintance; Eduard asks Petir to fulfill an assignation he himself cannot.  Taken aback, about to refuse, Petir hesitates because of Eduardís sigh, which "overturned all his rationality....What had he heard in Eduardís sigh that moved him so much?  The answer surprised him: it had been brute fear."

Petir does the favor asked of him--meeting Eduardís mistress, Lera--and this uncharacteristic act soon leads to others; the safe pattern of his life no longer satisfies or excites him.

At work, he becomes entangled with Pund, a ferocious, one-legged litigant who relentlessly attacks Pyramid, hoping to find justice for his past accident.  When Petir attempts to show Pund personal sympathy, he makes himself a target, and is drawn into further complications.

Petirís actions not only shake him loose from his routine, they provide him a new sensibility and perspective on his world.  The novel is set in a land where people attempt to shore up "traditional values" while detesting and fearing those who inhabit the Outland, "where displaced members of some of the countryís many ethnic groups had come down from the mountains and were living in tents and shacks, cooking over open fires."

Revolutionary unrest is a continual menace, and overshadowing all is the State, punitive and mysterious, whose tight connections with the Pyramid Corp. become ever more mysterious.

Impossible to understand, the conglomerate seems completely powerful and hopelessly ensnarled; its slow workings have the effect of rendering those who comprise it, such as Petir, completely powerless.  This portrayal of bureaucracy is one of the many ways in which Country of Memory evokes the work of Kafka, yet there are important ways in which the sensibility of this work differs.

In Kafka, mysteries begin and grow, exponentially and maddeningly, in the present; action only compounds them, as do questions, and the future, once somewhat clear, is denied in part through a sheer lack of recognizable progress.  Country of Memory changes this dynamic by adding the burden and dimension of memory.

The novelís ingenious use of time allows Petirís memories(and those of other characters)to illuminate the story; they perhaps even hint at a new understanding of progress.

Frederick deftly, and often, detaches chronology: "Time lay on its side in a corner sleeping"; "Petir looked at his watch: the hands formed a letter in an unknown alphabet; time gave him no clues."

Memories are not understood as factual re-creations, but as more valuable ones.  The honesty of fiction is often found preferable to the work of historians, who are always "trying to connect events, searching for the thread--sometimes inserting the thread before finding it."

The past is rich because it is personal; it manifests itself continually, in both the present and the future.  In a world of such temporal fluidity, however, Petir often courts confusion, struggling against losing his place.   "He realized now that he wasnít remembering something awful, he was anticipating it."

If this fascinating novel has a weakness, itís that it sometimes seems to be peopled exclusively by psychoanalysts and philosophers; still, the narrativeís intellectual discourse is much more frequently provocative than distracting.  The charactersí lives are fraught with existential concerns, after all, and even the most theoretical talk provides surprising warmth and characterization.

In this world, where people are isolated, lost to themselves, it seems they must intrude upon and inhabit each otherís lives to gain some knowledge of their own.  Petirís desire to come to some understanding with Pund works in this fashion; the pursuit--full of curses and danger, rife with memory--allows Petir to see himself "from the outside, a rational seeker."  Progress is almost palpable here, though it is not easily recognizable, for it comes in surprising shapes and unexpected actions.  In the end, it seems progress might be as simple as the capacity to hope.

Perhaps the greatest triumph of Country of Memory is its atmosphere, and the specificity with which it is brought forth.  Characters seek solace in the "amber colored liqueur that was the national drink," while outside blows a wind "which was called by different names in different villages but always the name of a woman.  Just now it was present without being overpowering, an insistent, whispering force that made the smoke from the chimneys shiver."

Danger is everywhere, though its amorphousness makes it possible that this atmosphere is also generated from within the characters--that many factors contribute to physical manifestations, just as many times inhabit the present.  As Faulkner once wrote. "the past is never dead.  Itís not even past."  In K. C. Frederickís Country of Memory, the many implic- ations of such thinking are hauntingly unwound and carefully tangled.  While the novelís world may be "just a narrow strip on the edge of a deep chasm," where "inventions are the truest part," the strangest, most beguiling effect is how it begins to remind us of where we ourselves live.