ONLINE BOOK SUMMARY: A LONG WAY GONE - ISHMAEL BEAH

CHAPTER SUMMARIES WITH NOTES AND ANALYSIS

NEW YORK, 1998

Summary

This opening vignette shows the narrator as he has arrived in the United States after his lost boyhood in Sierra Leone. He is attending high school there and his fellow students question him over and over about his life in his homeland. He observes that they haven’t begun to suspect his full story. Their inquisitiveness is ironic, because they think that his being in country at war is cool. He can only smile a little and say that he will tell them about it sometime.

Notes

This quasi-conversation opens the door to what becomes Ishmael’s “telling” of his not so cool experiences in Sierra Leone.

CHAPTER ONE

Summary

Ishmael and his family and friends have very little connection to the war that is taking place in their homeland until refugees begin passing through. There are families that have walked hundreds of miles to escape the fighting and atrocities and as they walk by, Ishmael is most impacted by the fact that the children would not even look at them. They jump at the slightest sound and they are tired and malnourished. It is evident that they have seen things that so plague their minds that if they explained it, Ishmael and his friends would refuse to accept it. He is only ten years old at this point and his imagination doesn’t have the capacity to understand what these children have witnessed.

The first time Ishmael is actually touched by the war, he is twelve. It is January, 1993, and he, his brother, Junior, and their friend Talloi decide that they will go to the town of Mattru Jong to participate in a talent show. They had organized a rap group when he was just eight and had been rapping together ever since. They had first seen that kind of music on television and met every other weekend to study it. They didn’t even know for a long time what it was called, but were impressed with the fact that black fellows knew how to speak English really fact and to the beat. Later on, Junior had gone to secondary school where other boys had taught him more about foreign music and dance. This is how they came to know about hip-hop. As a result, the phrases from this music began to pepper their everyday conversation as well.

On the morning they left for Mattru Jong, they loaded their backpacks with their cassettes and lyrics they are working on as well as several layers of clothes on their bodies for the days they would be gone. They have no idea that this unusual way of dressing will benefit them later. They also never say goodbye or tell anyone where they are going, because they have no idea they are leaving, never to return. They decide to walk the sixteen miles from their village of Mogbwemo to save money and stop halfway at Kabati, his grandmother’s village. Her name is Mamie Kpana and his grandfather is known as Kamor, or teacher, because he is a well-known Arabic scholar and healer. She keeps asking the boys all kinds of questions about their father and their eating habits and everything that a grandmother would worry about. They put her off and refuse to spend the night. Ironically, she waves them off, as they start off again, with her right hand, a sign of good luck.

They arrive in Mattru Jong a few hours later and meet up with their friends, Gibrilla, Kaloko, and Khalilou. The next day, they stay at Khalilou’s home and wait for their friends to return home from school. The three boys from this village come home early from school, because the heard the rebels had attacked Ishmael’s village of Mogbwemo. School in Mattru Jong had been cancelled indefinitely. According to the teachers, the rebels had attacked the mining areas first which caused people in their homes to run for their lives. It was mass chaos and people just ran, giving up on finding their loved ones. Gibrilla declares that Mattru Jong will be next.

Ishmael, Junior, and their friends from their from village leave for the wharf to see if people of their village are arriving there. They sit there for three hours, but none of the boys sees anyone of their families. Talloi declares that they must go back and see if they can find their families before it’s too late. Ishmael is reminded that the last time he had seen his father was three days before when he was coming home from work in the mines. He and his father had not been close for a while, because another stepmother had destroyed their relationship. He and Junior had been on their way to see their mother in the next town three miles away. Just as his father was about to say something to him, the stepmother had come in and his father had closed his mouth and gone into the parlor with her. When his father had still been paying for their schooling, they had only seen her on weekends and holidays. However, now his father was refusing to pay anymore, so they were able to see her every two or three days along with their little brother, Ibrahim. His mother feels very sad and guilty, because she doesn’t have enough money to pay for their school, but she declares that she is working on it. She also always asks how his father is and tells the two boys that he is a good man who loves them very much. His problem is that he picks the wrong stepmothers. They went to Ibrahim’s school to pick him up and all the way home, he holds Ishmael’s hand and throws himself on them in excitement. Two days after that visit, the brothers left for Mattru Jong. All these memories overwhelm Ishmael as he visualizes his father running from work and his mother weeping and running to his little brother’s school. A sinking feeling overcomes him as he thinks about them.

The two boys eventually begin to question the refugees from their village, and amidst the cries of women and children, an old woman tells them too much blood had been spilled where they are going and that even the good spirits have fled that place. Nonetheless, the boys begin their journey home and finally come to Kabati, their grandmother’s village. It is completely deserted, including their grandmother’s house. They sit on her verandah questioning whether they should go on when suddenly a Volkswagen van comes roaring in front of their grandmother’s home. Everyone runs for the bushes, but Ishmael doesn’t quite make it. He sees the driver, with a bleeding arm, vomit up blood and when the door on the other side opens, a woman leaning against it falls to the ground. Inside are three dead bodies, two girls and a boy, and their blood is spattered all over the inside of the van. A woman in the streets steps forward and embraces the bleeding man who then explains that even though the rebels had murdered his entire family, he had taken their bodies with him so he could bury them and know where their graves were.

This van is followed by a continuous stream of wounded, crying people, including a woman who carries her dead baby on her back. They child had been shot dead as she fled from the rebels. The woman stops and rocks her baby, in too much shock to even weep. The baby’s body has so many bullets that they are protruding from its body and it is clear to Ishmael, by the eyes of the baby, that all has been lost.

At this point in his narrative, Ishmael remembers his father talking about the Independence of 1961 when there were so many changes in power and everything was “rotten politics.” He remembers now an adult saying about the war is presently running from is another war of independence, this time a liberation of the people from a corrupt government. However, Ishmael wonders what kind of liberation movement shoots innocent civilians and children. That night, after their return to Mattru Jong, Ishmael has a night mare that he is shot in the side, tries to run to safety, but ends up with someone standing over him with a gun pointed right at him. He wakes up and hesitantly touches his side, no longer able to tell the difference between dream and reality.

Every morning in Mattru Jong, they go down to the wharf, hoping for news from home. However, the stream of refugees from that direction ceases and the news dries up. Government troops are deployed to the village and soldiers guard it at various checkpoints. The boys continue to tell themselves that the war is just a passing phase that will be over in less than three months. They listen to rap music to pass the time, but Ishmael can’t help but remember the images from Kabati. He remembers life in Kabati when he would visit his grandparents. An old man would say that “we must strive to be like the moon.” When Ishmael asked his grandmother what the old man meant, she said it was an adage that served to remind people to always be on their best behavior and to be good to others. People complain when there is too much sun and the again when it is too cold. However, no one grumbles when the moon shines, because a lot of happy things happened in the moonlight. After that, Ishmael took it upon himself to observe the moon and he saw many faces and other images in the moon. Now, he still observes the moon and looks for the same images he saw as a six year old. In this way, he is pleased to realize that part of his childhood has not disappeared.

Notes

This chapter is the first taste of war for Ishmael and it leaves him with only his brother by his side. The fate of the remainder of his family is unknown. It is also the beginning of the end of his childhood and the peaceful memories he has always known. Horror has now become a part of his existence.

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