The Danger and The Enemy
By Jos Vandeloo
The Danger: Three men exposed to radiation in a nuclear accident are hospitalized in isolation because they are dangerous to others. Sick and delusional, two make a daring escape only to suffer slow degeneration in the every-day world.
The Enemy: Belgian villagers are caught between lines in WWII. A boy comes of age in chaos, longing, and poignant irony.
Jos Vandeloo is a well-established author in Flemish. His powerful short novel The Danger is a dramatic exposition of the plight of victims of nuclear accidents. Three men who have been exposed to large doses of radiation are hospitalized in isolation because they are a danger to others. Suffering malaise, nausea, skin lesions, and delusions, they try to believe in the possibility of recovery despite ineffective medical treatment. Seeking a more humane environment to regain their health, two execute a bold escape from the hospital only be slowly destroyed by the poison their bodies have absorbed. Vandeloo depicts their tormenting existential crisis with vivid and moving images. Their condition becomes a symbol of the predicament of all mankind faced with the danger of nuclear accidents.
The Enemy takes us inside the world of Belgian villagers caught between the constantly shifting lines of German and Allied troops in World War II. It is an evocative but unsentimental description of their moods and concern and the dreadful consequences of their actions. The narrator is a 15-year-old boy who comes of age with his lonely outreach to American GI’s and his budding love for a local girl in the midst of fear an bitterness as ever-present as the constant rain. The tragic and ironic ending emerges form attempts by the villagers to aid a mortally wounded German soldier.
Both novels have been translated into at least a dozen European and Asian languages.