ABSTRACT
Nadeem Aslam’s tale takes place during the American invasion of Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and find Osama bin Laden. Two foster brothers, Mikal and Jeo, attempt to travel from Pakistan to Afghanistan to help provide medical aid to the forces fighting the Americans, but instead, they are sent to fight with the Taliban; Jeo dies, and Mikal, is captured by a warlord who then sells him to the Americans. Like Don DeLillo and John Updike, Aslam “wanted to enter the terrorist mindset,” but unlike them, Aslam’s background insulates him from charges of cultural appropriation and Western bias. Amy Waldman’s novel is not about terrorism per se, but the aftermath of terrorism. Jodi Picoult’s book tells the story of an African-American nurse accused of murdering a newborn whose parents are white nationalists and vicious racists. Picoult’s treatment of white nationalism parallels the other treatments of terrorism by inviting the reader to ask hard questions of ourselves and our world.
