Sometimes, when Matar brings together both narratives

Sometimes, when Matar brings together both narratives, they end up colliding rather than complementing each other. The most comical instance of this occurs when the author recounts the audience he was finally granted with David Miliband, the UK’s foreign secretary at the time (2010). This came following a public campaign to persuade the UK, which was then cozying up to Gadhafi’s regime, to insist that the latter reveal the whereabouts of Jaballa and other political detainees. The unlikely novelist from Libya had made his way into the corridors of power in his adopted but long-indifferent country, and would now demand justice for his father. How does Matar the writer convey the stress and anger roiling within Matar the avenging son? He doesn’t, opting for erudite divagation instead. “The Foreign and Commonwealth Office building is architecturally interesting in the way that it suffers from conflicting influences,” the author observes, remarkably detached. That’s why this book is important. The Return reacquaints us with the barbarity of Gadhafi, exposes little-known machinations engaged in by his cunning son (and then-darling of the British) Seif al-Islam, and demonstrates the extent to which the regime ravaged one family, the Matars, among thousands. All this makes it that much more difficult for glib “devil you know” enthusiasts to convince us that we should pine for the pre-Arab Spring era.