“Memory is a house with many rooms, and sometimes we choose to close the door on some of them.”
— Duro reflects on the past and the selective nature of memory.
Archivist's Choice
The Hired Man
Aminatta Forna (2013)
Genre
Literary Fiction / Historical Fiction / Mystery
Reading Time
360 min
Key Themes
See below
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In a quiet Croatian village scarred by war, an old hunter's peaceful life changes when a British family arrives, making him confront his past and the town's hidden guilt as a mosaic reveals forgotten horrors.
Synopsis
Duro, a local handyman in the Croatian village of Gost, meets Laura, a British woman, and her two children, who plan to restore an old house as a summer cottage. Duro, knowing the house's history, offers to help, becoming a trusted friend to Laura. As Laura's daughter, Grace, and Duro work to uncover a mosaic hidden beneath plaster, they slowly reveal the village's wartime past. Gost's residents are unwelcoming, their hostility hinting at deep secrets and a refusal to face the Croatian War of Independence. Duro, caught in the house's and village's dark history, must manage rising tensions, protect the family from unspoken truths, and confront his own involvement and the legacy of lost love and violence. Eventually, Duro's past explains the villagers' hostility and the house's importance, helping Laura understand the complex, tragic history of the seemingly peaceful village.
Reading time
360 min
Difficulty
Medium
Pacing
Slow
Mood
Atmospheric, Melancholy, Suspenseful, Reflective
✓ Read this if...
You enjoy atmospheric literary fiction with a slow-burn mystery, exploring the psychological aftermath of war and the complexities of collective memory.
✗ Skip this if...
You prefer fast-paced thrillers or clear-cut resolutions to mysteries.
Plot Summary
A Stranger in Gost
Duro, a man living in Gost, is hunting when he sees an unfamiliar car, a rare sight in his isolated village. He later sees the people: a British woman named Laura and her two children, Grace and Marcus. They have bought a run-down house that Duro knows well from his youth, a house with a troubled past. At first, Duro watches them from a distance, curious about their presence and their plans for the old, neglected property.
Offering Assistance
Duro, feeling both curious and responsible, approaches Laura and offers to help with the house, especially with the broken water pump. Laura, cautious at first, accepts his offer. Duro quickly proves very useful, fixing problems, making repairs, and generally making the house livable for the family's summer stay. He starts visiting daily, becoming a trusted handyman and a quiet friend to Laura, who finds it hard to renovate an old house in a foreign country.
Uncovering the Mosaic
Laura's daughter, Grace, is very interested in the house's history. While exploring, she finds a section of plaster in the courtyard that seems to hide something. With Duro's encouragement and help, they begin carefully chipping away the plaster, revealing parts of a beautiful, detailed mosaic. This act of uncovering becomes a main activity for Grace and a symbolic one for Duro, who feels a strong connection to the house and its hidden past, knowing the mosaic holds more than just art.
Village Hostility
As Laura and her children settle in, Gost's residents react with a mix of curiosity and clear hostility. They view the outsiders with suspicion, gossiping about their reasons for being there and their presence in a house that holds difficult memories for the community. Duro notices the cold looks and whispered comments, understanding the tension better than Laura does. He tries to protect the family from the worst of it, often stepping in or changing the subject to avoid the villagers' clear dislike, but the mood in Gost remains tense.
Duro's Past and the House's History
Through Duro's thoughts and memories, the story begins to show his past. The house Laura now lives in belonged to a young woman named Masa's family, whom Duro loved deeply before the war. He remembers their time together, the beauty of the mosaic, and the life they imagined. These flashbacks sharply contrast with the present, highlighting the deep loss and unresolved sadness Duro carries, directly linked to the house and the war.
The War's Shadow
As Duro and Grace continue uncovering the mosaic, and as Laura tries to understand the local ways, the shadow of the Croatian War of Independence grows larger. The villagers' unwillingness to talk about the past, combined with Duro's own painful memories, suggests that something terrible happened in Gost during the conflict. The fate of Masa and her family, the house's original owners, becomes a central, unspoken mystery, with Duro holding the key to the painful truth of their disappearance, which is closely tied to the house.
The Unveiling
Grace, with Duro's patient guidance, eventually uncovers the entire mosaic in the courtyard. What is revealed is a beautiful, detailed design, but also one that is subtly damaged, showing the violence it witnessed. The act of fully revealing it is symbolic, bringing to light not only the artwork but also the hidden history and the unspoken trauma within the house and community. For Duro, seeing it fully exposed is a powerful, emotional moment, making him face the past he has tried to keep separate.
Duro's Confession
Overwhelmed by the memories brought up by the house and the mosaic, Duro can no longer stay silent. He tells Laura, slowly and painfully, about the war and what happened to Masa and her family. He reveals that Masa's family, being ethnic Serbs, were targeted during the conflict. Duro, under pressure and facing impossible choices, was forced to take part in their displacement, an act that has haunted him since. He explains the complex and brutal realities of wartime decisions and the shared guilt that still affects Gost.
Laura's Reaction and Understanding
Laura is deeply shocked and upset by Duro's confession. The peaceful summer vacation she imagined for her family breaks apart as she faces the brutal realities of war and its lasting impact in Gost. She struggles to reconcile the kind, helpful man she knows Duro to be with the painful details of his past actions and the village's shared involvement. Despite her initial horror, Laura begins to understand the deep trauma that has shaped Duro and the community, recognizing the human cost of conflict.
The Village's Collective Memory
The novel examines how communities remember, showing how Gost chose to hide its wartime atrocities under a normal appearance and economic growth. The villagers' hostility toward outsiders comes from their fear that their carefully kept silence will be broken. Duro's story highlights the individual burdens of this shared forgetting, and how Laura and her family's arrival, by accidentally revealing the past, forces the community to confront what it has tried so hard to forget. The mosaic symbolizes this buried truth.
Reconciliation and Departure
After telling his story, Duro feels a sense of relief, though the pain of his past remains. Laura, having gained a deeper, though darker, understanding of Gost, prepares for her family's departure. The summer has changed them all; Grace's innocence has been touched by history, and Laura's view of human nature and conflict has expanded. While the war's scars in Gost are far from healed, Duro's honesty opens a small door to possible future healing, both within himself and perhaps, eventually, within the village.
Principal Figures
Duro
The Protagonist
Duro moves from a state of suppressed grief and silent self-reproach to a partial catharsis through confession, allowing him to begin processing his past.
Laura
The Supporting
Laura's journey transforms her from an oblivious outsider to someone deeply affected and enlightened by the village's traumatic past.
Grace
The Supporting
Grace's innocence is subtly touched by the dark realities of history, leading to a loss of naive perspective.
Masa
The Mentioned
Though not a direct participant, Masa's story arc is one of tragic loss, her fate revealed as the core secret of the village.
Marcus
The Supporting
Marcus remains largely unaffected by the deeper historical revelations, serving as a foil to Grace's curiosity.
The Villagers of Gost
The Supporting
The villagers, as a collective, resist the uncovering of their past, maintaining their silence, but are implicitly challenged by Laura's presence.
Themes & Insights
The Lingering Trauma of War
The novel explores how the Croatian War of Independence still affects individuals and communities decades later. The war's impact is not just historical but deeply personal, seen in Duro's guilt, the villagers' shared silence, and the physical scars on the land and buildings. The story shows how unresolved trauma can worsen, shaping interactions, creating suspicion, and preventing true healing. What happened to Masa's family and Duro's involvement are direct results of this trauma, showing how easily ordinary people can be drawn into terrible acts during conflict.
“What happens in a war is not what you read in the books, not what they tell you in the newspapers. It is not something you can explain.”
Memory and Forgetting
A main theme in the novel is memory – how it is formed, suppressed, and eventually faced. The villagers of Gost actively engage in shared forgetting, covering up the past (literally, with the mosaic) to keep a fragile peace. Duro, however, is weighed down by his memories, which he struggles to keep buried. Laura and Grace's arrival, with their innocent curiosity, brings these hidden memories to the surface, challenging the community's carefully built amnesia. The mosaic itself is a strong symbol for buried truth.
“People in Gost, they don't like to talk about the old days. They like to forget. But forgetting is not the same as not knowing.”
The Burden of Guilt and Complicity
The novel looks at the complex nature of individual and shared guilt during wartime. Duro carries great personal guilt for his actions and inactions concerning Masa's family, showing the impossible choices ordinary people face in extreme situations. The villagers of Gost share in the guilt, their silence and hostility coming from a shared knowledge of what happened. The story asks questions about responsibility, survival, and the moral compromises made during conflict, suggesting that guilt can be a silent, damaging force that shapes entire communities.
“Sometimes, doing nothing is the worst thing of all. Sometimes, doing something bad is the only way to survive.”
The Outsider's Perspective
Laura and her family are the 'outsiders' whose fresh perspective and lack of past knowledge accidentally reveal the village's secrets. Their initial innocence about Gost's past lets them ask questions and uncover truths that locals are too afraid or unwilling to face. This outsider view highlights the community's isolation and how hard it is to break into deeply ingrained historical stories. Ultimately, Laura's journey changes her from an unaware tourist into someone who witnesses deep human suffering and strength, forever changing her understanding of the world.
“You come here, you see the sun, the sea. You think it's just a pretty place. But under the ground, there are other things.”
The Nature of Home and Belonging
The house itself is a central symbol, representing home, loss, and the disputed nature of belonging. For Masa's family, it was their ancestral home, violently taken from them. For Duro, it represents lost love and a painful past. For Laura, it is initially a dream of a peaceful escape, which then becomes a way to a darker history. The novel explores how war can redefine who belongs to a place, who has a right to call it home, and how the physical spaces we live in carry the echoes of those who came before.
“A house remembers. It holds the echoes of laughter, and of screams.”
Plot Devices & Literary Techniques
The Hidden Mosaic
A physical object symbolizing buried truths and the process of uncovering them.
The mosaic, plastered over in the house's courtyard, is a powerful central symbol and plot device. Its discovery and gradual uncovering by Grace and Duro directly mirrors the slow, painful revelation of Gost's wartime secrets. As the plaster is chipped away, fragments of beauty and damage are revealed, symbolizing the fragmented and often brutal truth of the past that the community has tried to conceal. It serves as a tangible link to Masa's family and the atrocities committed, driving the narrative forward by literally unearthing history.
Flashbacks and Fragmented Memories
Non-linear narrative elements used to gradually reveal Duro's past and the war's events.
The novel employs flashbacks, primarily through Duro's internal thoughts and memories, to gradually piece together the events of the war and his relationship with Masa. These memories are often fragmented, reflecting the nature of trauma and the difficulty of confronting painful pasts. This non-linear storytelling creates suspense, as the reader slowly gains insight into the 'before' and 'during' of the war, contrasting it with the 'after' of the present day. It allows the author to control the pacing of revelations and deepen the mystery surrounding Gost's history.
The Outsider as Catalyst
A character whose unfamiliarity with a setting's history inadvertently triggers revelations.
Laura and her children, as British outsiders, serve as catalysts for the plot. Unburdened by the village's historical trauma or social codes, their innocent questions and actions – particularly Grace's desire to uncover the mosaic – disrupt the established silence. Their presence forces Duro to confront his past and the villagers to react to the potential exposure of their secrets. This device allows the author to explore the themes of collective memory and guilt through the eyes of someone detached from the direct events, making the revelations more impactful.
The Dilapidated House
A setting that embodies the decay and hidden history of the village.
The house Laura purchases is more than just a setting; it is a character in itself, embodying the decay, neglect, and hidden history of Gost. Its broken water pump, overgrown garden, and plastered-over mosaic all symbolize the village's attempt to cover up its past. As Laura and Duro work to restore it, they are not just fixing a building but symbolically confronting and processing the trauma embedded within its walls. The house's former occupants and their tragic fate are intrinsically linked to its present state, making it a powerful symbol of loss and remembrance.
Critical analysis
Notable Quotes
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
— A character's observation on how historical events continue to influence the present.
“Sometimes the greatest truths are found in the silences, in what is not said.”
— Mira tries to understand the unspoken history of the village.
“Grief is a landscape you walk through alone, even when others walk beside you.”
— Duro's internal reflection on his personal losses.
“Everyone has a version of the truth. The trick is to find the one that fits.”
— Investigating different accounts of a historical event.
“The earth remembers. It keeps its secrets until someone digs deep enough.”
— The land itself holding clues to past violence.
“You can bury the dead, but you can't bury the past.”
— The lingering effects of historical trauma.
“Fear makes people do terrible things, and then it makes them forget.”
— Duro considering the motivations behind past betrayals.
“There are some things you carry with you, like stones in your pocket, no matter how far you travel.”
— Duro's enduring burden of past events.
“History is not what happened, but what is remembered.”
— Discussing the subjective nature of historical accounts.
“The hardest part is not finding the truth, but accepting what it means.”
— Mira's struggle with the implications of her discoveries.
“Sometimes, the quietest people hold the loudest stories.”
— Duro, the reserved 'hired man,' slowly revealing his past.
“A house, like a person, can hold many secrets within its walls.”
— The old house itself becoming a symbol of hidden histories.
“The landscape knew more than the people living on it.”
— The natural environment as a silent witness to historical events.
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Key Questions (FAQ)
The novel centers on Duro, a Croatian man living in the village of Gost, who offers his services to Laura, a British woman who has bought a house in the village for a summer cottage. As Duro helps Laura and her children, Grace and Peter, he becomes entangled in the village's deep-seated secrets stemming from the Croatian War of Independence, particularly those connected to the house and its former occupants.
About the author
Aminatta Forna is a critically acclaimed novelist whose work often explores themes of identity, memory, and the legacy of conflict. Her notable novels include 'The Hired Man,' 'Ancestor Stones,' and 'Happiness,' which have garnered international praise for their lyrical prose and compelling narratives. Forna's writing is celebrated for its nuanced portrayal of characters navigating complex historical and personal landscapes.
