Amy Waldman Books

Twenty-two-year-old Parveen is an Afghan-American anthropology student at UC Berkeley, adrift between the separate pulls of a charismatic professor whose contempt for Western cultural narratives runs deep, Afghan immigrant parents who have never quite found their footing in America's strange orbit, and the illicit secret life of young Afghan Americans trying to live normal lives in America. When she comes upon a best-selling book called Mother Afghanistan, a memoir by humanitarian Gideon Crane that has been turned into a sort of bible for American engagement abroad, she's inspired. Galvanised by the author's experience and bent on following in his footsteps, Parveen travels to a remote village in the land of her birth to join with his charitable foundation. When she arrives, however, Gideon's clinic is not a light in the war-torn darkness but a decrepit, unstaffed tomb, the shadowy remains of the place she'd read about. Bit by bit, the fabrications in Gideon's account are revealed.

"When a Muslim architect wins a blind contest to design a Ground Zero Memorial, a city of eleven million people takes notice. Waldman, a former bureau chief for the New York Times, explores a diversity of viewpoints around this fictional event, bringing in politicians, businessmen, journalists, activists, and normal people whose lives--whether by happenstance, choice, or even due to their country of origin--get caught up in the controversy. Incredibly, she manages to keep all the balls in the air without ever fumbling. The story is moving and keeps the pages turning, but there are also bigger themes at work: of individuals versus groups; about the purpose of art, commerce, government, and journalism in society; of how people respond to grief and terror. The result is honest, compelling, and breathtaking."--Chris Schluep, Amazon Best Book of the Month.

Ten years after 9/11, a dazzling, kaleidoscopic novel reimagines its aftermath A jury gathers in Manhattan to select a memorial for the victims of a devastating terrorist attack. Their fraught deliberations complete, the jurors open the envelope containing the anonymous winner's name-and discover he is an American Muslim. Instantly they are cast into roiling debate about the claims of grief, the ambiguities of art, and the meaning of Islam. Their conflicted response is only a preamble to the country's. The memorial's designer is an enigmatic, ambitious architect named Mohammad Khan. His fiercest defender on the jury is its sole widow, the self-possessed and mediagenic Claire Burwell. But when the news of his selection leaks to the press, she finds herself under pressure from outraged family members and in collision with hungry journalists, wary activists, opportunistic politicians, fellow jurors, and Khan himself-as unknowable as he is gifted. In the fight for both advantage and their ideals, all will bring the emotional weight of their own histories to bear on the urgent question of how to remember, and understand, a national tragedy. In this deeply humane novel, the breadth of Amy Waldman's cast of characters is matched by her startling ability to conjure their perspectives. A striking portrait of a fractured city striving to make itself whole, The Submission is a piercing and resonant novel by an important new talent.