This is perhaps the most moving piece of literature I have ever read. In Brian's journey we are forced to take a look at our own journeys through life. I remember when he was a hostage and everyday the local newspaper in Belfast would publish how many days he had been missing. As those numbers crept upward we despaired but his sisters were ever hopeful and forced us to keep him always in our minds. His account of his captivity is so inspiring. It is wonderful to see how his sense of humor and love of the written word kept him going. More recently I have read his accounts of his visit to Chile with John McCarthy. Here is a man with a real gift for using words to describe torrents of emotion and who's use of poetry illuminates the soul. If you read only one book in your life read this one!

This is undoubtedly one of the most powerful books I have ever read. It is not a chronological or day to day catalog of how one man survived an ordeal which most of us could only imagine (being held hostage in Lebanon for five? years because some terrorists mistook him for an Englishman, when he was actually Irish), but rather a look at how his inner resources helped him survive, and helps the reader understand what a resourceful and mentally strong will it takes to do so. This is a cut above, and frankly, a book that has not been far from my thoughts since I finished it...

Last Wednesday I met Brian Keenan in a restaurant in Cork Ireland. I got to shake the man's hand which he offered to me warmly accompanied with a kiss on the cheek. I was very moved. The book is an essential read and while some readers have been put off by his ordeal the book primarily deals with himself and the journey he goes on to find his true spirit. It is a revelation. The loving relationship he has with John McCarthy is moving to the point of tears. Even though this happened 6 years ago we must never forget man's amazing ability to survive in the midest of such an horrendous ordeal.

I am a Brit currently living in Chile - and this book was a disappointment to me. It failed miserable to convey the beauty of the country. I felt it was a book more about the friendship of these two man rather than about the country they were exploring.

I found it was a refreshing change to see the different view points of the authors - set out section by section rather then the thoughts of the two mingled together. However - Mr Keenan was annoying the heck out of me by the end of the book. He obviously didn't want to be on this trip. He made miserable reading and I felt sorry for Mr McCarthy and his more upbeat endeavours. Someone should explain to Mr Keenan that Pablo Neruda's poety is worth reading - there is no doubt - but there is so much more to Chile this one man. In addition - he is not the only chilean poet to have achieved international recognition. Gabriel Mistral ring any bells?

This country is incredible - from the driest dessert in the world to the icy ridden south. It is breathtakingly beautiful - it's people so different in each region - the scenery so distinct from north to south. I felt that none of that came across. You should only read this books if you are interested in the friendship of these two men. If you want to know about Chile - there are better books out there - books which convey something of the country and all its people.

This is a hilarious and moving tall (but true) tale about two men who had a dream and decided to go out and live it. Keenan and McCarthy came up with the idea of having a farm in Patagonia while still hostages in Beirut. Several years after their release, they decided to go to Chile and see how workable their dream was. The results were mixed but in the process, they managed to put a period to their time in captivity, learned far more about their respective heroes Bernardo O'Higgins and Pablo Neruda than they had hoped and discovered that they could still be great friends when not stuck together inside a dark, tiny room. Their travelogue is funny, frank, fractious and familiar to anyone who has traveled second-class in a country where the infrastructure is iffy. Definitely give this book a try.

You are ordinary women; married, with children; concerned with the welfare of a recently widowed mother; hard working members of a community with its own troubles. Suddenly, your brother, the family's only son, is kidnapped while in a foreign country. What do you do? Whom do you call? Where do you go first??? These were the realities of the older and younger sisters of Brian Keenan, a teacher at the American University in Beirut, who was taken hostage in 1986. For more than four years his sisters, Brenda and Elaine, worked to gain their brother's freedom and in doing so they took on a world far beyond their familiar Belfast streets. This is a story of real feminists; women who just do what has to be done when called upon to act. They do not grace the covers of magazines and it takes a reporter to pull from them their story. Even then, they keep close much of the inner turmoil that had to be overcome to achieve their goal. This book brings a new dimension to Keenan's "An Evil Cradling." It reveals the commendable strength of the rest of the family.