Growing up in New Jersey yet alienated by his half-Irish, half-Egyptian heritage, 18-year-old Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy falls under the sway of a cynical imam in a storefront mosque and comes to reject the decadence of the American infidel, in this provocative 2006 novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner John Updike.
"This marvelous novel can be accurately labeled as a 9/11 novel, but it deserves also the label of masterpiece for its carefully nuanced building up of the psychology of those who traffic in terrorism. Timely and topical, poised and passionate, it is a high mark in Updike's career."—Booklist (starred review)
