Review
From the book jacket: 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:...
Beyond the Book
John Updike is the author of more
than fifty books, including collections
of short stories, poems, criticism and novels. His
novels have won the Pulitzer Prize, the
National Book Award, the American Book
Award, the National Book Critics Circle
Award, the Rosenthal Award, and the
Howells Medal.
The Ad are believed to be an ancient
Arabian people who became rich through
the production of frankincense and as a
trading point for spices from India.
The Qur'an says that the prophet Hud was
sent by Allah to the city of Ubar/Iram
(famed for its tall towers) to warn them...
