Strange and sneaky and driven by a fury that only slowly reveals itself, "The Tall Man" opens like a ghost story and closes with its feet firmly in the real world.
Six weeks ago it happened here in Georgia with the unexpectedly quick ouster of Eduard A. Shevardnadze from the presidency, driven by public fury over a parliamentary election that people were convinced he had stolen from them.
Much of the pathos of the memoir comes from Sattouf's depiction of his father, a dreamer full of bluster, driven by impotent fury at the West; a secularist who can't quite free himself from superstition; a man who wants to give orders but whose lot is to follow them.
For all that, he gives the impression of being relatively equable -- a bit zealous, perhaps, but not driven by the furies.
To be sure, Dean may be at times driven by "mysterious furies," as Bai puts it, but isn't this what makes us human?
As Britain's tax on bank bonuses shows, fiscal policy in the rich world risks being driven by rising public fury at bankers and bail-outs.
Here, they are combined with her ability to create memorable and moving characters to produce a state-of-England novel driven by tenderness and fury.
But where Harris's maths genius Tom Jericho was a wet blanket unsuited to any activity but moping, James is driven by a righteous fury which he vents on anyone and everyone.
When it's completely flattened they retreat, panting and laughing, but one North African teenager, seemingly driven by an atavistic fury, continues to pound the fragments, screaming: "I break everything.
