Terrorist
John Updike
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
From one of the most gifted American writers of the twentieth century--and the author of the acclaimed Rabbit series: "A chilling tale that is perhaps the most essential novel to emerge from September 11" (People) about an eighteen-year-old devoted to Allah, who's convinced he's discovered God's purpose for him. "The most satisfactory elements in Terrorist are those that remind us that no amount of special pleading can set us free of history, no matter how oblivious and unresponsive to it we may be." --The New York Times Book Review The terrorist of John Updike's title is eighteen-year-old Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, the son of an Irish American mother and an Egyptian father who disappeared when he was three. Devoted to Allah and to the Qur'an as expounded by the imam of his neighborhood mosque, Ahmad feels his faith threatened by the materialistic, hedonistic society he sees around him in the slumping New Jersey factory town of New Prospect. Neither Jack Levy, his life-weary guidance counselor at Central High, nor Joryleen Grant, his seductive black classmate, succeeds in diverting Ahmad from what the Qur'an calls the Straight Path. Now driving a truck for a local Lebanese furniture store--a job arranged through his imam--Ahmad thinks he has discovered God's purpose for him. But to quote the Qur'an: Of those who plot, God is the best.
Product Details
Price
$24.95
$23.20
Publisher
Knopf Publishing Group
Publish Date
June 06, 2006
Pages
320
Dimensions
6.1 X 8.56 X 1.15 inches | 1.18 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780307264657
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About the Author
JOHN UPDIKE was the author of more than sixty books, eight of them collections of poetry. His novels, including The Centaur, Rabbit Is Rich, and Rabbit at Rest, won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He died in 2009.
Reviews
"Terrorist leaves the reader ripping through the book to its finale, desperate to find out what happens. . . . [A] compelling and surprising ride."--USA Today "A chilling tale that is perhaps the most essential novel to emerge from September 11."--People (Critic's Choice) "The startlingly contemporary story of a high school student in a crumbling New Jersey town whose zealous Islamic faith and disaffection with modern life make him a pawn in the larger conflict between Muslim and Christian, East and West. They also make him a powerful voice for Updike's ongoing critique of American civilization."--Time "His best novel in years. Passionate, timely, fiercely detailed . . . Updike's eye is on the contemporary American condition, and it misses nothing."--The Providence Journal "An emotionally daring novel . . . A riveting plot."--The Boston Globe "The most satisfactory elements in Terrorist are those that remind us that no amount of special pleading can set us free of history, no matter how oblivious and unresponsive to it we may be. And that history, in disposing of empires, admits of no innocents and spares no one."--Robert Stone, The New York Times Book Review
"An arresting novel . . . A gripping and surprising resolution . . . The richest novel Updike has produced in some time, perhaps since Rabbit at Rest."-Chicago Tribune "A soaring, beautifully nuanced work of fiction that both chills and touches the reader . . . A stunning work . . ."--The Charlotte Observer
"An arresting novel . . . A gripping and surprising resolution . . . The richest novel Updike has produced in some time, perhaps since Rabbit at Rest."-Chicago Tribune "A soaring, beautifully nuanced work of fiction that both chills and touches the reader . . . A stunning work . . ."--The Charlotte Observer
