“But knowing yourself makes you wise.” – American Taliban
American Taliban opens with the reader embarking on a journey through a normal Americanized Lilly Pulitzer pink and green town with a surfer/skateboarder/future Brown University student from a wealthy upper middle class family seeking out the meaning of life through novel quotes from Taoism to Dylan. Summering in a typical East Coast beach town is a positively popular eighteen-year-old rightly named John Jude Parish. Surfing in his safe corner of the world, the passport of John Jude’s life is stamped with typical full-blooded American male travels, spending his days on the beach and nights surfing the virtual waves.
It is through Parish’s web surfing that the reader sees the first mapping of possible foreign lands of travel with companions carrying international passport names such as Naim, Tajh, Ahmed and Ibrahim. In Parish’s innocent online travels, the reader’s own compass begins to point to red flag territories of worry for many including Parish’s translucent mother, Barbara.
Parish’s dreamy existence changes course when a skateboarding accident leaves him with more time to surf the net instead of the waves. His fictional vision quest steers him from his parent’s safety net into a world rarely traveled or imagined by American males. With legs cast into non-use and boredom packed tightly with curiosity, Parish takes to chatting online into the worlds of Sufism, the Koran and other Arabic lands. Along the globe of internet travel, female persuasion leads Parish to a possibly unexpected though foreshadowed trip to the Sharia school in Brooklyn. With American movie logos packed lightly into the luggage of Parish’s surreal vision quest, the reader sees Parish’s naivete as possibly needed though not truly heroic. (“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.” – Bob Dylan)
Parish travels between the world of American childhood games in white shalwar kameez to Pakistan, where he can not pretend to just be playing dress up any longer. It is in Abraham’s literary talent for packing modernism into the unfamiliar suitcase of terrorism that readers will find a worthwhile destination. “The first time he shoots a rifle while visiting a training camp, he dreams of Richard Burton doing the same thing a century before,” writes Abraham.
American Taliban may lead readers down a path mistakenly parallel to the reality of John Walker Lindh’s life. Upon closer review, though, they will discover that Abraham’s convincing writing style provides proof of how polar opposite Lindh and Parish’s truly are. Parish lives in a dreamy bubble with wealthy parental support holding him up while affording him the right to choose any destiny he desires. Lindh’s true reality proves to be the stuff of nightmares.
The only disengaging part of American Taliban is found at the journey’s end. Abraham’s decision to detour in the final pages of the book may leave the reader questioning her original literary travel plans. Parish is left in Taliban land with no clear destination stopping point as the story line parachutes down with Parish’s mother pulling the cord with her guilt, landing the reader frustratingly to the ending drop zone. Abraham’s decision to pack the final destination with an almost trite mother’s guilt over her lost son is one to which readers will have to adjust before the premise of the entire novel comes crashing down. Regardless, American Taliban provides passport-worthy travel.
This post originally appeared on my former blog, StyleSubstanceSoul.
Fabulous review!
Well written review by Mare Henderson. I have not read American Taliban and actually had not heard of it until reading your review. I like when reviews, like yours, do not give away the book plot and will find time to read this one.
I agree with J.R. and Jen that Mare Henderson has crafted two well-written reviews. My wife follows this blog and knew I had read American Taliban and therefore, showed me Mare’s review.
My husband is right. After reading Mare Henderson’s well-written review, I want to read American Taliban. Mare Henderson used crafted imagery with creative verbage to add a story within a story to her reviews, giving review readers anticipation of reading a novel she in hopes will write. When Mare Henderson publishes her next novel, I volunteer to do the review.