‘Sometimes it was a terrible thing to be the one who lived.’ How are the parallels between Mark and Joaquin Morales’s stories important to the plot?

“I’m sorry, Colin. I tried. There was nothing I could do”. Marks mental breakdown as a result of to many wars and too many needless deaths, and his eventual acceptance that scars only partially heal, forms the main narrative of the novel. The parallel story of Joaquin Morales, serves to illuminate Marks story. It is through Joaquin’s experience of war trauma, though, that the author is able to tie together the events of the modern wars that Mark is involved with to create the plot and theme of survival in this novel.

Just before his breakdown, Mark searches for the endless promises offered by the travel guide books, like the promise that psychiatry offers mentally ill patients. Joaquin does not offer Mark that promise because he belongs to an age ‘where regrets were useless’, when ‘the ruthless and cunning were blessed, an age when all good things came to those quick enough to seize them.’ That was how Joaquin explained it to himself. Joaquin is an opportunist. He ...