The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism

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The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism

3.16 of 5 stars 3.16 · rating details · 275 ratings · 88 reviews

A spellbinding story of renunciation, conversion, and radicalism

What drives a young woman raised in a postwar New York City suburb to convert to Islam, abandon her country and Jewish faith, and embrace a life of exile in Pakistan? The Convert tells the story of how Margaret Marcus of Larchmont became Maryam Jameelah of Lahore, one of the most trenchant and celebrated voic

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Hardcover, 224 pages

Published May 10th 2011 by Graywolf Press (first published April 28th 2011)

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Dec 13, 2012 Kristin rated it 1 of 5 stars

I finished this book several days ago and needed some time to think on it. My rating on the book is more a reflection on the book's content than the writing of the author. I think the author did a fine job with the topic's content, I am just finding that I'm having a very negative reaction to the subject of the book (Maryam Jameelah). I waited for a long time to receive this book from the library, there was a long waitlist. Which I find interesting, that there are lots of people wanting to read...more I finished this book several days ago and needed some time to think on it. My rating on the book is more a reflection on the book's content than the writing of the author. I think the author did a fine job with the topic's content, I am just finding that I'm having a very negative reaction to the subject of the book (Maryam Jameelah). I waited for a long time to receive this book from the library, there was a long waitlist. Which I find interesting, that there are lots of people wanting to read this book. So there must be some fascination with a western woman converting to Islam. After some thought, I'm thinking this must relate more to her leaving the United States and immersing herself in purdah in Pakistan than in her conversion herself, as there are reportedly some 20,000 women converting to Islam in the US every year at present and there seems little American interest in this fact.

So I received the book from the library with much excitement, ready to learn about Maryam Jameelah, about her life, her conversion, and her time in Pakistan. And to be upfront and honest, I am left extremely disappointed and, well, angry. Because I am amazed that the Muslim world embraced a (as I see it from the book) largely uneducated, probably insane woman as an "Islamic scholar" largely because she abondoned the US and the West to live in Pakistan or the Dar ul Islam (the land of Islam). Here is a woman abondoned by her American family, abandoned by 2 Pakistani families because she was SO psychologically disturbed.... writing numerous books on Islam as if she was a scholar on the topic. And Muslim publishers published her books and distributed them to the Muslim world without caring about her qualifications. Which were NOTHING. She was not an expert on the West. Either academically or in life. She had little real world experience. She hadn't traveled, couldn't speak about the diversity of the American experience or the western experience. Then she spoke as if she were a scholar of Islam. And yet she hadn't studied the hadith, didn't know ANY classical Arabic (and therefore couldn't even read the Qur'an). They all respected her ONLY because she was an American who rejected her culture and her country in favor of Islam. What a low bar to set.....

Perhaps things were different in those days and I should be grateful that things have changed. Today, American women converts are overwhelmingly highly educated, a large number having masters degrees, and are highly traveled both in the US and abroad. They also study Islam intensively and therefore end up quite educated in Islamic history, theology, politics, etc. And as such, they wouldn't dare to have the HUBRIS to write tracts instructing other Muslims on Islam. Which I think is what blows me away about Maryam Jameelah. Her sheer hubris.... The book even mentions the theological "ideal Muslim leader." He wouldn't dare offer up himself, because to lead other Muslims astray.... the sheer danger to his soul would be SUCH a heavy burden. That is the same for all religious Muslims. So to see Maryam Jameelah, with so little world/life/religious knowledge try and spread her "Islamic knowledge" is quite shocking..... it's incredibly unislamic for her to do so.

And therefore that is, I think, what I find most upsetting about this book. That people are so fascinated by this woman. In 2011, people STILL want to learn from her. When we have people with SO much more religious knowledge, SO many more men and women with religious experience today from which/whom we can learn. The only true value I see in this book is that it shows who Maryam Jameelah truly is.... A woman who sought her own truth. And I hope, truly, God-willing, she found it. I hope, God-willing, she found peace. But I really hope, as well, that she did not bring along too many unsuspecting, uneducated people down the wrong path (extremism and false understandings of Islam) with her. And hopefully this book will shed light about her to prevent such misunderstandings from continuing to occur. For those who read this book hoping to better understand the actual religion of Islam, I advise seeking out those who have truly studied the theology of Islam for many years (i.e. Fazlur Rahman, Muhammad Asad, Seyyid Hossein Nasr, Jeffrey Lang), not simply those who expound on it without knowledge.(less)

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Oct 09, 2012 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an excellent read, somewhat of a mystery too. A detective story. The book is gripping and really heats up towards the end. It is fascinating history unearthed, and gives one an apercu into a radically different way of viewing the world.

I have argued with many friends over the causes of 9/11. Many say the problem is just unequal economic development, that if those countries just had a better economy, they wouldn't feel inclined to oppose or harm our way of life. I personally feel that th...more This is an excellent read, somewhat of a mystery too. A detective story. The book is gripping and really heats up towards the end. It is fascinating history unearthed, and gives one an apercu into a radically different way of viewing the world.

I have argued with many friends over the causes of 9/11. Many say the problem is just unequal economic development, that if those countries just had a better economy, they wouldn't feel inclined to oppose or harm our way of life. I personally feel that the US has collectively brushed away this question of "why?" in an act of collective amnesia or post traumatic inability to revisit the root causes of 9/11. Why exactly did they attack the city where I lived? The common viewpoint is that they were just a bunch of crazies, a few bad apples.

This book illuminates much of that. It is even-handed, including views critical of Israel's role in the Middle East along with the self-delusion and obliviousness to facts, or call it sheer ignorance, of many fundamentalists. You will learn lots about the early rise of fundamentalism, just as one could in the book "The Looming Tower." Except that book focused more on Sayd Qutb and on Egypt, whereas this book is about Pakistan.

I have come to see our paradigm of more iphones and stores open 24/7, as inadequate. Many other peoples do feel the need for something more, for a respect for family and a for a place for more profound communal values in the body politic. Of course they hardly respect other faiths. But then in a way, economics rules all in the west, so we don't value faith and certain non-material values either, at least at a federal level.

Some people just want to opt out. The convert was one of them. But unlike its subtitle I am not sure it is a tale of extremism, in fact I wonder if the publisher added that to sell the book. Would her life have ended up more gratifying to her had she stayed in the States? And if as the book implies, it would not, then are we not the extremists?

A book guaranteed to be thought provoking.(less)

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Sep 09, 2012 Louise rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, islam, natl-book-award-nominee, pakistan

This is the sad story of Margaret Marcus, an American of Jewish descent who fixates on Islam. She connives a sponsorship to live in Pakistan with Malwana Abdul Ala Mawdudi, an advocate of fundamentalist Islam and an active advocate for the Jamaati Islami Party. Taking the name of Maryam Jameelam, she becomes a recognized writer and advocate for conservative Islamic values and jihad and remains in Pakistan for over 40 years. Author Deborah Baker stumbles upon her letters in the New York Public Li...more This is the sad story of Margaret Marcus, an American of Jewish descent who fixates on Islam. She connives a sponsorship to live in Pakistan with Malwana Abdul Ala Mawdudi, an advocate of fundamentalist Islam and an active advocate for the Jamaati Islami Party. Taking the name of Maryam Jameelam, she becomes a recognized writer and advocate for conservative Islamic values and jihad and remains in Pakistan for over 40 years. Author Deborah Baker stumbles upon her letters in the New York Public Library and follows her life, eventually meeting her in Pakistan.

This is not a conventional biography. It strays from the story of Margaret Marcus to the story of the author tracking Margaret Marcus. It has snippets of information on Jamaati philosophy and 1950's psychiatry. The chronology is not linear, which is confusing in the first initial part of the book. For instance, the mental health issue is brought up in the course of Maryam's second hospitalization, but that diagnosed schizophrenia informs everything to that point. We learn at the end, that the letters upon which a lot of the story is based, are not just bogus ramblings of Maryam, but appear here in an edited fashion.

Besides the weaknesses above, the book is incomplete. There are no pictures. If the strict Islamic code makes photos of Maryam and her family unavailable, there could be pictures of pamphlets, manuscripts or facades of homes, institutions or streetscapes. There should be at least one interview of one of Maryam's four surviving children.

I had high expectations since this is a National Book Award nominee for 2011. I don't see how this one is placed above books like Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang Before and Beyond the Rape of Nanking- A Memoir, Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World, or From Splendor to Revolution: The Romanov Women, 1847--1928, all of which, I expect will stand in their field as definitive for years to come.
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Dec 02, 2011 Nicky rated it 4 of 5 stars

A fascinating read that is hard to categorize. It is an exploration of Maryam Jameelah of Pakistan, an Islamic convert and acclaimed writer deeply critical of the West, who happened to have been born Margaret Marcus in postwar WW2 in NYC. But the author does more than complete the research and present her findings. She takes the reader on the journey with her from the whys and hows of her first exploration of archieved boxes of letters at the NYC library to the charged letters she herself exchan...more

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Oct 15, 2011 Amari rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

A very unusual biographical style, weaving the subject's letters over many years into the first-person narrative of the author. Well worth the time I invested, and probably very important as I move ahead in the process of articulating my own informed "version" of recent history and the interaction of Islam and the West as well as that of religion and secularism in general.

Maryam Jameelah, the biography's subject, is fascinating, at times elusive, and probably crazy. It doesn't show at first, bu...more

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May 26, 2011 Audacia Ray rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: cultural-studies, read-in-2011

Ultimately, The Convert was unsatisfying to me because it seemed like the big reveal was "Maryam/Margaret/Peggy is crazy*." Maryam Jameelah (born Margaret Marcus, Peggy to her family) is an American Jewish woman raised on Long Island who converted to Islam and moved to Pakistan in the early 1960s, when she was in her late 20s. The book is structured around Maryam's conversion, her struggles with fitting in (or not) in both Long Island and Pakistan and the possibility of her mental illness. Told...more Ultimately, The Convert was unsatisfying to me because it seemed like the big reveal was "Maryam/Margaret/Peggy is crazy*." Maryam Jameelah (born Margaret Marcus, Peggy to her family) is an American Jewish woman raised on Long Island who converted to Islam and moved to Pakistan in the early 1960s, when she was in her late 20s. The book is structured around Maryam's conversion, her struggles with fitting in (or not) in both Long Island and Pakistan and the possibility of her mental illness. Told through reconstructions/edits of Maryam's letters (edited by the author) and the author's investigative journalism, the book reveals after we read through a bunch of very articulate letters from Maryam that Maryam has spent time in a mental institution, in both New York and Pakistan. Surprise! People with mental illnesses can be good writers with logical trains of thought!

In both of the cultural contexts Maryam lived in, she was an outcast - in the U.S. she was seen as freakishly modest and sexually frigid (a la her Freudian psychoanalysts), in Pakistan she was too bold and outspoken. In both places, her quite-to-anger temper was a defining feature of her interactions with other people. I would have liked to read more about sexism in both of these contexts and how the mental institution solution was not necessarily about Maryam herself.

Throughout the book, the author alternates between using the names Maryam, Margaret, and Peggy, as if to underscore her crazy. I mean, really, what kind of woman uses three names? Only a crazy one!

There are lots of interesting things about this book, but I think the author could've gone deeper in interrogating the ways in which mental illness has been used against Maryam throughout her life.

*I use the word "crazy" throughout this review to capture the dismissive way in which mental illness is treated in our culture. It's not a word I condone the use of, because it frequently is used to delegitimize a person's experiences and ideas about the world.(less)

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Nov 09, 2011 Laurie rated it 3 of 5 stars

JUST TO BE REDUNDANT AFTER READING OTHERS' REVIEWS, THIS IS THE BIOGRAPHY OF A SECULAR JEWISH WOMAN WHO "CONVERTS" TO ISLAM AND TAKES UP RESIDENCE IN PAKISTAN. MARGARET MARCUS TO MARYAM JAMEELAH. THERE SHE BECOMES A PROLIFIC AND WIDELY READ WRITER ON ISLAM, IS HOSPITALIZED SEVERAL TIMES FOR MENTAL ILLNESS, MARRIES AND HAS CHILDREN. SHE REMAINS AN ISOLATED AND STRANGE INDIVIDUAL. IT READ LIKE A MYSTERY, TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE WHYS OF HER DECISIONS. IT CONTAINED WELCOME HISTORICAL INFORMATION ON...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Is Maryam Jameelah (nee Margaret Marcus) a politically prescient radical born a couple of decades too soon, or a mentally ill rebel projecting her own victimization neurosis and sexual repression, and driving everyone crazy in the process? There are indeed intriguing questions presented in this biography of a middle-class secular Jewish woman who converted to fundamentalist Islam in the early 60's out of sympathy for the Palestinian cause. The author's blend of personal narrative and well-writte...more

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Oct 01, 2011 Mandy rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I chose this book hoping to gain a gleam of understanding towards the volatile situation in the Middle East and the basis of foreign religion. Sadly, this tomb raised more questions that it answered, the first of which is why the title? Though the story of "Peggy," Margaret Marcus or Maryam, the main character is certainly interesting, it is hardly "A Tale of Exile and Extremism," as poised in the title.

Rather, it is the sad story of a young woman suffering from mental illness, who while search...more I chose this book hoping to gain a gleam of understanding towards the volatile situation in the Middle East and the basis of foreign religion. Sadly, this tomb raised more questions that it answered, the first of which is why the title? Though the story of "Peggy," Margaret Marcus or Maryam, the main character is certainly interesting, it is hardly "A Tale of Exile and Extremism," as poised in the title.

Rather, it is the sad story of a young woman suffering from mental illness, who while searching for answers herself, wrote ideology for others to follow, though she often did not lead by esample as witnessed by the very fact that a woman in her position was able to publish such sensitive material in the first place.

I mention the mental illness not as an insult, but as one of the few facts I was able to establish from this book, which is more of a memoir than a biography. Our title character was institutionalized and treated for unnamed mental conditions both in the US as Peggy and in Pakistan as Maryam Jameelah. It seems the one thing all of her family, guardians and friends could agree upon in regards to this conflicted young woman, was that she needed serious medical help.

As a rule, I do not start a book and leave without finishing, if only in hopes that it will get better. As far as reading material goes, this book thankfully did get better when the author begins narrating her own story of encounters with Maryam and the insights following their meetings. The reader continues to wonder why early in the book Ms. Baker found it necessary to share her own religious background, as this section can be cut, but her personal experience in Pakistan and through research are thought worthy, but not enlightening in terms of finding reasons for religion.

It would seem that Baker has been working on this story for over a decade, and therefore it is very personal to her, not only in light in of 9/11 but neither should this part of the story be excluded. Personally, I would rather have read a book about Baker's actions, and thoughts rather than this one which offers little usable information. Many names and dates, conflicts and political affiliations are listed and described, but not in enough detail so as to be understood by the novice reader without further personal research.(less)

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Jun 17, 2011 Marianna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2011

Liked: 1. The story of Peggy/Maryam is fascinating. 2. The author is very well-versed in Islam and did an excellent job of making it accessible. 3. Her explanations about the historical impact of Jamaati.

Didn't like: 1. The book seemed disjointed at times. 2. I felt like there were large chunks of information missing. 3. Maraym is alive and the author met with her on several occassions yet we get only a small part of that.

There are several things I took away from this book. First, be careful a...more

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May 13, 2011 Caitlin Constantine rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found this book very informative and thought-provoking and also very relevant to our current geopolitical situation, as it is about an American Jewish woman who disavows both her American citizenship and her Jewishness, converts to Islam and moves to Pakistan. Oh, and she does this in the 1960s, and along the way, writes a series of tracts and essays that help form the ideological underpinnings of the modern jihadi movement.

Yeah, an American woman's writings helped inspire the 9/11 terrorists...more

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Jun 19, 2011 Bernadette rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a non-fiction work about one of the strangest people that I've ever read about. Deborah Baker tells the tale of Margaret Marcus' conversion from non-observant New York born Jewish woman to a Muslim woman who leaves New York for Pakistan in the 1960s. Marcus appears to seeks answers to a serious mental illness through Islam. While she appears to have done well as an author of extremist literature, her poorly treated mental illness remains and her story is extremely disturbing. I found thi...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Peggy Condon rated it 3 of 5 stars

The subject material and cultural experience was interesting and compelling to read, but the presentation was temporally disconnected and confusing. There was a bit too much of the authors opinion mixed in with the narrative.

I would have liked more interview material with the people in her story to give their perspective of her evolution over time, and on her real influence in Afghanistan as an author of extremist literature.

The isolation and confusion of Maryam Jameelah was never resolved, in...more

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Oct 25, 2011 Matthew Dixon rated it 3 of 5 stars

there is a difference of opinion on this book - it was nominated for the national book award for non-fiction yet it does not get very strong reviews here - and I understand why. It's a fascinating story of an awkward jewish girl raised middle class in Larchmont in the 1950s who seems to find her identity in converting to islam and moving to pakistan and becoming a writer who is a staunch critic of western civilization. All that is well and good and really interesting but the book's structure is...more

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Jun 23, 2011 Michelle added it

The subject matter of The Convert is absolutely fascinating. What causes someone to convert to Islam? Better yet, what causes a young woman to convert to Islam and then move to Pakistan? Unfortunately, Deborah Baker never truly answers these questions, and the execution of the subject matter falls flat.

While Ms. Baker uses Maryam's own correspondence, she admits to rewriting it or changing it to help the flow of her story. This, to me, fictionalizes the story and makes the entire concept more di...more The subject matter of The Convert is absolutely fascinating. What causes someone to convert to Islam? Better yet, what causes a young woman to convert to Islam and then move to Pakistan? Unfortunately, Deborah Baker never truly answers these questions, and the execution of the subject matter falls flat.

While Ms. Baker uses Maryam's own correspondence, she admits to rewriting it or changing it to help the flow of her story. This, to me, fictionalizes the story and makes the entire concept more difficult to accept. Maryam never fully explains why she converted or why she felt compelled to become one of the most vitriolic, outspoken anti-American correspondents. Yet she admitted to withholding the truth in letters to her parents. Combine that with the alterations by Ms. Baker, and the reader quickly loses the sense of authenticity and truth that symbolizes a quality biography.

Ms. Baker does her best to make Maryam as sympathetic a person as possible, but here too she fails in her attempts. Maryam is utterly unsympathetic in her demeanor and righteousness. Her inability to even consider a world where the two cultures (Muslim versus any other) could coexist is simply unfathomable and rather scary. With her stints in various mental hospitals, one gets the impression that Maryam was a very miserable woman, and she put the blame for her existence on the United States. It is a difficult attitude to comprehend, but the fact that Ms. Baker is unable to truly explain it makes it worse.

While I was anxious to read The Convert, get a better understanding of the Muslim culture and understand what would prompt a woman to convert, I was ultimately left with as many questions with which I started. Maryam's words, not matter how altered, left a bitter aftertaste, and I was horrified at her inflexibility and intractability. She justified her behavior and attitudes with a sense of morality that was uncompromising and harsh. The Convert is the type of novel that removes any sense of hope that the two cultures will ever be able to get along, which, given the unending nature of the conflicts in the Middle East, is not the right message for this day and age.

Thank you to Graywolf Press for my reading copy.(less)

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Jul 06, 2011 Stacey D. rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone interested in this topic and quirky stories.

Recommended to Stacey by: Read the NYT review recently.

I liked The Convert a lot, but like many others, felt the writing was somewhat disjointed. The explanation near the end about the letters was confusing as well.

In all, The Convert reads like a mystery: was this the story of Maryam, a woman who found her true calling and inspiration in Pakistan in converting to Islam or was it the tale of Margaret, a (crazy) woman who couldn't find satisfaction in the West, as a woman and a Jew, during the late 1950s/early 1960s?

America disappointed her. Her pare...more

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Jun 17, 2011 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I almost gave this book a 5---it was quite a page turner for me. This story of a misfit Jewish girl turned Pakistani Muslin in the early 1960s is a pretty unlikely tale and I loved seeing how it played out. However, the author's narrative attempting to muse on the link between this girl's/woman's writings and their influence on current jihadi activity of Muslims around the world (9-11 specifically)is a little rambling and obtuse, when I thought it was actually pretty transparent. Anyway, a great...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Tyra rated it 2 of 5 stars

Given that I knew nothing about the subject of the book before I read it, I can still say that I know very little about her.

The book was well written and very readable and it did help explain a little bit about why radical extremism in Islam exists. I found the history of Pakistan very interesting and the search for the utopian government of Islam.

But, I was really hoping to see what would cause a culturally Jewish girl from suburban NY to convert to Islam and move to Pakistan in the early 1960s...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Laurie rated it 3 of 5 stars

While this book claims to be how Margaret Marcus, American Jew, became Maryam Jameelah,Muslim, the book is just as much about Maryam's mentor, Mawlana Abul Ala Mawdudi, and how he came to be a prominent Muslim writer. I understand that we needed some background on Mawdudi so we could understand how he and Maryam came to correspond and live together. But I wanted to read about Maryam and not really anyone else, and I felt like, for a biography, there wasn't that much information about Maryam. I'm...more

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May 17, 2011 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: own-print, memoir-biography, nonfiction, read-2011, group-reads, x

The Convert is the “tale” of Margaret Marcus, a young Jewish woman from New York, who converts to Islam, becomes Maryam Jameelah, and moves to Pakistan. She goes on to become one of Islam’s most dynamic critics of the West and Western culture. In this book, Deborah Baker attempts to understand Maryam’s life, beliefs, and actions through her letters and other writings, and through a journey to uncover the details of Maryam’s life and relationship with Mawlana Mawdudi, one of the men who helped l...more The Convert is the “tale” of Margaret Marcus, a young Jewish woman from New York, who converts to Islam, becomes Maryam Jameelah, and moves to Pakistan. She goes on to become one of Islam’s most dynamic critics of the West and Western culture. In this book, Deborah Baker attempts to understand Maryam’s life, beliefs, and actions through her letters and other writings, and through a journey to uncover the details of Maryam’s life and relationship with Mawlana Mawdudi, one of the men who helped lay the foundations for militant Islam extremism and Maryam’s guardian in Pakistan.

I didn’t quite know how to deal with The Convert. On the one hand, there were parts of the story where I was really interested, engrossed even, in Maryam’s story — like during the discussion of Maryam’s institutionalization. There were times, however, when Deborah Baker seemed to go off in a semi-random direction and I would get lost again, a little confused as to where she was going.

I originally really liked some of the structure, specifically the use of Maryam’s letters to tell a great deal of the story, but I was really unhappy when I got to the author’s note at the end where Baker says she edited and rewrote pieces of them. There was so much discussion in the book about how Maryam maybe wasn’t being entirely truthful in her letters to her family that it was a little off-putting when Baker said she had edited them further — how could we know at that point what was edited by Maryam from her story versus what was edited by Baker? Without knowing more about Baker herself, I don’t know what to think of this. I think it might have been a little easier to digest if the note had been at the beginning, so that it was clear from the start that she was editing/re-writing; I think I would’ve felt less deceived.

I came away from the book at the end a little confused as to what Baker wanted the reader to take away from it. Was it really about this Jewish girl who became a Muslim, was it about the culture and issue of extremism with Maryam really serving as more an example, was it about her mental illness? If she was going to inject herself into the story as she did, I wish she had done so a little more so that it might have been clearer what her intent really was in writing the book, and what her personal biases were.

Complaints aside, I do think The Convert was an interesting book. I was especially interested in the questions and details surrounding Maryam’s mental illness and institutionalization, and while I thought the background on Mawdudi was at times too much, I did find a lot of it interesting. I think the book was an interesting view into Maryam’s story; it was the structure and some of the uncertainty about Baker’s role/biases that really bothered me.

I received a copy of The Convert from Graywolf Press to participate in the BOOK CLUB discussion hosted by Devourer of Books and Linus’s Blanket.(less)

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Sep 21, 2011 Caroline Hooper rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really don't know how to rate this book. It was compelling; I wanted to finish it but not in the way a good book usually draws me in. The basic story--an American Jewish woman who converts to Islam and moves to Pakistan was unique, even odd. I did not always like the way the author handled the material. She spends too much time writing about historical themes, and while she talks much about the letters exchanged between Maryam and her parents and her sponsor, we don't really get to read many o...more

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Sep 08, 2011 Michelle rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

Was this even really a biography? I'm not sure. At the end, I'm not sure at all of what is true and what is made up--whether it is the subject or the author speaking. Disjointed, and then at the end the author confesses to essentially manipulating the letters and changing what she wanted. I'm unsure whether this was a story of an ultimate loner with no place in a regimented society, or a story of an essentially untreated mental illness, or something else altogether. Confusing.

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May 05, 2012 Angela rated it 2 of 5 stars

An interesting, but difficult read. Margaret Marcus, a jewish girl becomes Maryam Jameelah- a devout Muslim. The author follows much of her journey by reading her letters that are now property of the New York public library. Much of the Islamic stuff was hard to follow and I found the many similar Arabic names sometimes confusing. I was never sure which Ayatollah or Mahmound she was speaking of. Would not recommend unless you are really into this subject matter.

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Apr 09, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Definitely an interesting book. I think Baker's fix on Maryam changes during the course of the book, for a brief period getting kind of aggressive, but I suppose that is really kind of the point. The takeaway is that the story behind Maryam is not exactly clear- even from herself. She took on this new life because she found western society flawed, but I don't think she quite found what she was looking for. Regardless, the story is interesting.

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Nov 02, 2011 Susan Ritz rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-nonfiction

An unexpected biography that made me feel like I was following author Deborah Baker on her puzzling journey to discover the real story behind Maryam Jameelah, nee Margaret Marcus an American Jewish girl who converted to Islam, moved to Pakistan and wrote the books that inspired the Islamist movement that contributed to 9/11. Baker reveals her story slowly, kept me wondering who this woman really was all the way to the final pages.

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Feb 08, 2012 Ellen Johnson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

very interesting story of a young schizophrenic American woman who converted from Judaism to Islam and went to live in Pakistan at the end of the 1950s. The story within the story is about how the author learned about her and evaluated evidence of her life as truth or lies. I'll admit I skipped 2 or 3 pages here and there of political/historical/philosophical digressions from the story, but other than that, I found it fascinating.

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Jun 13, 2011 alexandra rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really found this book engaging, especially as a bi-yearly visitor to an Islamic republic, which had originally been one of Margaret Marcus' goals. Her severe mental illness made the book less informative than I thought it would be; the author became entangled in sifting through her letters and interviews to find out the truth as opposed to what Marcus wanted her family and the public to think.

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Aug 18, 2012 Tenzin rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

I hesitate to shelve this book under nonfiction.
There's a chapter at the end in which the author admits to rewriting the main subject's letters. The author also interjects herself into the book with I this and I that. She doesn't fit.

I couldn't finish this book.
It's less about Maryam Jameelah and more about the politics of Pakistan and the Middle East. I was hoping for more of a biography.

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Oct 28, 2011 Diane Lybbert rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excellent biography of 28-yr-old woman raised by secular Jewish parents who converts to Islam and goes to live in Pakistan with a political scholar and his family, as his 'daughter'. Tales of assimilation to Middle Eastern way of life, and bouts of madness that sent her to the asylum. Taken from archives of her letters, essays, and books she wrote condemning the West and espousing Islam. Gripping and powerful, very well done.

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Dec 14, 2011 Dale Copps rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the more eccentric books I have read in a while, about one of the more eccentric characters. This contemporary convert to Islam (she's still alive in 2011, in her 70s) has a sad story to tell. I am not sure it helps me to understand Islam better than I did before I read it, but it certainly reveals a couple of interesting characters--the heroine and the author.

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