Graham Greene once said of Brian Moore's fiction, "Each new book is unpredictable and dangerous. He treats the novel as the tamer treats a wild beast." That certainly is the case with No Other Life. Here Brian Moore mixes religion and politics and comes up with a volatile meditation on power, suffering, and the Kingdom of God.
At the end of his career, Father Paul Michel, a Canadian missionary on the small Caribbean island of Ganae, looks back on a life tied to the destiny of a black orphan boy named Jeannot whom he rescued from poverty. With his blessing, this boy went abroad to be educated as a priest. However, the Vatican expelled him when he returned to Ganae and preached a fiery brand of liberation theology. Then, following the death of an infamous dictator, Jeannot ran for president and won.
As he watches his protege struggle with the dangers of equating justice with violence against the rich, Father Michel realizes the sweep and the clout of evil. Jeannot seems like a Christ figure as he aligns himself with the poor against the mulatto elite, the Catholic clergy, and the military of Ganae. Brian Moore cuts to the quick with No Other Life, especially in his depiction of the perils faced by those who take up the cause of the poor and the powerless.