To Shake Us Up

Falling Night by Phil Clarke is a powerful and horrifying Christian novel set in the 1990’s. It is a fictional account but grounded in fact as it is based on the author’s experiences in Africa during the 1990’s.

Bored of life in sleepy Yorkshire, lead character Alan, volunteers to help in the fictional war-torn country of Kugombwala. We follow him as he encounters some very different experiences.

The country is unstable and corrupt. Aid workers need to be very aware of their surroundings. They meet some good souls along the way but also encounter pure evil.

Under Phil Clarke’s masterful pen, the hot landscape, fear and corruption come alive. We see terrible scenes of genocide, child soldiers and pure evil along the way as civil war erupts. Local tribes think nothing of massacring their neighbours. Life is not sacred but cheap.

Alan is naïve at first. We see his character development and understanding of the situation as the novel progresses.

We also witness Alan becoming a Christian.  Too many ‘coincidences’ happen until Alan has an epiphany “God had turned His face towards him.”