Terrorist
ABOUT
THE BOOK
The son of an Irish-American mother and an Egyptian father who disappeared when he was three, Ahmad turned to Islam at the age of eleven. He feels his faith threatened by the materialistic, hedonistic society he sees around him in the slumping factory town of New Prospect, in northern New Jersey. Neither the world-weary, depressed guidance counselor at Central High School, Jack Levy, nor Ahmad’s mischievously seductive black classmate, Joryleen Grant, succeeds in diverting the boy from what his religion calls the Straight Path. When he finds employment in a furniture store owned by a family of recently immigrated Lebanese, the threads of a plot gather around him, with reverberations that rouse the Department of Homeland Security.
But to quote the Qur’an: Of those who plot, God is the best.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
An attempt to explain, why a young Muslim, born and raised in the United States becomes a terrorist. A work of considerable distinction and remarkable complexity of thought.
Updike provides a vivid portrayal of the way terrorists psychologically manipulate young adults into joining their movements.