These questions linger even now, two years later: Why? How? How much? By book’s end we, and he, do not really know why he was taken, how he was released, and how much money his freedom required. He may never learn the answer to any of these questions, but he does now know his level of tolerance for fear (high), his ability to adapt (superb), his powers of memory (astonishing), and his skill in avoiding vomiting en route to freedom (not so great).
As the war in Afghanistan and the turmoil in Pakistan continue, we are witnessing the creation of a new literary genre, the captivity memoir, the 21st-century version of the disillusionment novel of World War I, the heroic but sardonic battle novel of World War II, and the hopeless Saigon-and-the-jungle novel of Vietnam. Van Dyk has made an ample contribution to this new tradition, and some of his passages inevitably will become part of the canon. Like this one:
“I heard a rustle behind me. Oh my God, they are going to pull out a knife and cut off my head right now. I looked around and saw the man right behind me put his hand in his jacket as I had seen men do in videos on television. He is pulling out the knife. I knew how long it would be. I had once seen a man use it to cut the throat of a sheep and a water buffalo. I turned and raised my hand to protect myself. He is going to come down on me and try to cut my throat . . .’’
Up in the Pakistani mountains in a Taliban prison, Van Dyk, who first attracted attention with his chronicle of travels with the mujahideen in an earlier Afghan struggle and who since has done stories for The New York Times, CNS News, and National Geographic, found himself in a stew of loneliness and mistrust. And in a cauldron of uncertainty growing out of the terrorist trash talk that surrounded him:
