Book description
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.
The memorial's designer is Mohammad Khan, an enigmatic, ambitious
architect. His fiercest defender on the jury is its sole widow, the
mediagenic Claire Burwell. But when the news of his selection leaks to
the press, Claire finds herself under pressure from outraged family
members and in collision with hungry journalists, wary activists,
opportunistic politicians, fellow jurors, and Khan himself. 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.
Amy Waldman was co-chief of the South Asia bureau of
The New York Times
. Her fiction has appeared in
The Atlantic
and the
Boston Review
and is anthologized in
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010
. She lives with her family in Brooklyn. This is her first novel.
