Customer Reviews

Terrorist

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Terrorist masterfully depicts the life of a young man cuaght in a circle whose intrigues he never really understood but unfortunately committed himself to the futile path. In many wys he mirrors the character of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, or Gavin in Triple Agent Double Cross. A must read to have a better grasp of todays man of terror.

"Devils, Ahmad thinks. These devils seek to take away my God. All day long, at Central High School, girls sway and sneer and expose their soft bodies and alluring hair......The teachers, weak Christians and nonobservant Jews, make a show of teaching virtue and righteous self-restraint, but their shifty eyes and hollow voices betray their lack of belief."

Those are the thoughts of 18-year-old Ahmad, a student at a New Jersey high school. He appears to be a bomb waiting to go off - the son of an Irish-American mother and an Egyptian father who took off when the boy was three, he is devoted to Islam and has found a surrogate father in the imam who gives him instruction. It's not only his classmates that Ahmad disdains but also his mother and the string of boyfriends she dangles.

Updike points a chilling portrait of a would be terrorist and also causes readers to wonder why no one had evidently seen the signs of this boy's mind set. In the author's description one of the reasons he's bent on destruction is that he can't think of anything else to do after high school. Little reason for killing people.

No notice is taken when Ahmad suddenly evidences an interest in learning how to operate large trucks nor has anyone noted that the boy has never had a friend - male or female. One wonders if he ever longed to be a part of the high school crowd or go out with one of the girls he denigrates It is as if he has developed in a vacuum with only his hatred of American materialism to keep him company.

Terrorist is an eerie dissection of an obsessive mind, a troubling story yet a necessary one as it relates to our world today. Plus, in the hands of the master John Updike it is rich in elegant prose and descriptive passages so substantive that it seems characters may leap from the page.

- Gail Cooke

Updike's writing is wonderful and the story here is relevant and timely, if perhaps a bit fanciful. However, the misogyny is truly distracting. I thought *perhaps* he was trying to make an underlying comment with it, but indeed his other writings reflect the misogyny as his own.

Too bad. It ruins what could otherwise be something worth talking about.

After every attack on the United States, waves of paranoia have swept the nation. If we go back through these attacks since the American Revolution, we find a consistent history though that those who were born in the country that did the attacking but live in the U.S. are loyal to America. In part the paranoia builds because politicians and the media make hay from such fears. Eventually, everyone calms down and sees their fear is exaggerated.

As I read John Updike's book, I kept thinking that this was a book designed to explain what doesn't appear to be the case . . . a native-born American becoming a terrorist who follows Islamic beliefs to pursue Jihad. From the beginning, the premise didnt ring true. And the story itself rang even less true.

If you can get past that point, you still have to deal with Mr. Updike trying to describe something that's very different from his own cultural experiences. Mr. Updike seems to have worked hard at it, but again his depictions of the characters don't ring true to me.

Here's the story in a nutshell. A young man, Ahmad Ashmaway Mulloy, decides to identify with his absent father's Egyptian heritage while being raised by his round-heeled Irish-American mother with whom he doesn't feel very connected or comfortable. The identity becomes centered on practicing Islam. At the local mosque, he's encouraged to stop his education after high school to become a truck driver. Depressed guidance counselor, Jack Levy, tries to dissuade Ahmad, but only succeeds in becoming his mother's lover. Ahmad is introduced to the Chehab family, whose furniture store needs a new driver. Pretty soon, he's being sounded out for his feelings about Jihad. In the background, he has an ineffective attempt to become friends with a young African-American woman, Joryleen Grant, whose boyfriend and protector, Tylenol, is on Ahmad's case. Jack's sister-in-law is high in the Homeland Security apparatus which provides a "How are we going to stop them?" perspective to story.

Ironically, the best parts of the book involve quoting from the Qur'an and describing Ahmad's reactions to the passages. The next best parts come in the occasional uses of humor, such as when Charlie Chehab decides to call Ahmad, "Madman."

But if you want to scare yourself about native-born Americans joining up with al-Qaeda, this is your book.