The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Desert Burial, by Brian Littlefair
reviewed by David W. Madden

Brian Littlefair. Desert Burial. Holt, 2002. 254 pp. $25.00.

Although a first novel, Brian Littlefair’s Desert Burial reads like the work of a mature novelist—intriguing, carefully crafted, and intellectually engaging. Despite imagining a future of relative world peace, Desert Burial is a timely exploration of geopolitical maneuvering and old-style colonial manipulation. Set in the west African nation of Mali, the novel centers on Ty Campbell, an American geologist charting subterranean water tables. His placid routine is interrupted when an aid worker leads refugees into Campbell’s region. Soon an enigmatic figure named Bud van Sickle, CEO of Timbuktu Earthware, appears, offering food and medicine to the homeless and a job for Campbell full of intrigue, power, and wealth. Campbell must become a corporate spy and inform on a series of competing plans to dump nuclear waste: Timbuktu Earthware’s bid proposes burial in the Sahara. The novel offers a skillful interrogation of the politics of colonialism. Indeed, there is the process of exploitation as the colonizer purports to know what is best for the colonized, and van Sickle’s methods amount to a primer on colonial disingenuousness. The processes of Othering and dispossessing the native population are clearly evident when what is presented as a boon to economic prosperity becomes an impediment to self-determination and fair government. Timbuktu Earthware is a multinational maze of holding companies that ultimately, as one character reveals, act as a proxy for United States interests. What van Sickle proudly announces as the New World Order amounts to the Old World Order, only in more technological dress. Despite a melodramatic love interest and a too-pat conclusion to what is an otherwise intricate plot, Littlefair writes with remarkable verbal facility and a keen eye for small, revealing details. It is surprising to learn that his background is in international finance, yet that background has inspired an audacious narrative.