The Submission in 100+ Books in 2025

May 30, 2012 Dolly rated it really liked it

Shelves: art, virginia, india, pakistan, education-school, iran-persia, france-french, england-english, other-usa, military

This book was selected as the 2012 All Fairfax Reads book, part of the Fairfax County Public Library system. I had to wait a long time to get the book from my local library, but it was worth the wait. It is a compelling read and speaks to the complexity of what it means to be American, but also the terrible way in which humans can be toward one another. It almost felt like I was watching a car crash occurring as I sped my way through the book; like it was a disaster that I couldn't stop from hap This book was selected as the 2012 All Fairfax Reads book, part of the Fairfax County Public Library system. I had to wait a long time to get the book from my local library, but it was worth the wait. It is a compelling read and speaks to the complexity of what it means to be American, but also the terrible way in which humans can be toward one another. It almost felt like I was watching a car crash occurring as I sped my way through the book; like it was a disaster that I couldn't stop from happening, but couldn't tear my eyes from at the same time.

Update: On 27 September 2012, Amy Waldman came to speak in Fairfax, VA as part of the 2012 Fall For the Book program. I was considering going and finished the book just in time, but I didn't feel up to going out that night. You can watch a PBS NewsHour interview with the author here.

interesting quotes:

"...at the moment he planned to disavow his Muslim identity, his subconscious had unearthed its kernal." (p. 31)

"Amazing how chaotic and impossible things could seem when they were concentrated into a few pages of black-and-white print, instead of diluted into long days of red chilis drying in the sun, light dancing on the water, tales of marriages arranged and awry, the tunes of Runa Laila, her niece's sweet laugh, her mother's spicy fish, her father's comic stories of waking the sleeping guards at his rice mill, the swaddled piece of daydreams. The worst things then had their balance, could be put in their place." (pp. 109-110)

"Grief was not a country she had chosen to enter, but she could choose when to leave, even if joining the diaspora bore the taint of treason." (p. 157)

"Perhaps this was the secret to being at peace: want nothing but what is given to you." (p. 163)

"He had not realized the degree to which food - planning for it, obtaining it, perparing it, eating it, talking about it, wasting it, fetishizing it, creating it, selling it - made the twenty-first-century American." (p. 209)

"It wasn't news to him that anger and sex lived inside each other, but he'd never felt them pair with such force." (p. 264)

new words: chahar bagh, dhimmitude, purdah, enfiladed, contrapuntal, charette, crits, vertiginous ...more

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Nov 14, 2011 Bonnie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, 2011-books

I don't know if "anger" is the feeling this book is meant to evoke. Maybe it is. It is about America's own worst self, where racism rules the day and people are allowed to be vile because they're afraid and angry.

It is 2003 in this book, and a selection committee has just chosen the design for the 9/11 memorial. Turns out that the anonymous architect of the winning design is a Muslim named Mohammad "Mo" Khan and then all hell breaks loose because every single white character in this novel (with ...more

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Feb 04, 2012 Christina rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

Not sure how I feel about this one. The first hundred pages flew and I was engrossed but the rest didn't . I can't say where it went wrong or what I would prefer to have happened ( making this review useless I know) but it just missed a mark for me. ...more

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