The Submission

Product Description

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, & 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 & mediagenic Claire Burwell. But when the news of his selection leaks to the press, she finds herself under pressure from outraged family members & in collision with hungry journalists, wary activists, opportunistic politicians, fellow jurors, & Khan himself-as unknowable as he is gifted. In the fight for both advantage & their ideals, all will bring the emotional weight of their own histories to bear on the urgent question of how to remember, & underst&, 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 & resonant novel by an important new talent.