Overview

Claire Harwell hasn't settled into grief; events haven't let her. Cool, eloquent, raising two fatherless children, Claire has emerged as the most visible of the widows who became a potent political force in the aftermath of the catastrophe. She longs for her husband, but she has found her mission: she sits on a jury charged with selecting a fitting memorial for the victims of the attack. Of the thousands of anonymous submissions that she and her fellow jurors examine, one transfixes Claire: a garden on whose walls the names of the dead are inscribed. But when the winning envelope is opened, they find the designer is Mohammad Khan-Mo-an enigmatic Muslim-American who, it seems, feels no need to represent anyone's beliefs except his own. When the design and its creator are leaked, a media firestorm erupts, and Claire finds herself trying to balance principles against emotions amid escalating tensions about the place of Islam in America. A remarkably bold and ambitious debut, The Submission is peopled with journalists, activists, mourners, and bureaucrats who struggle for advantage and fight for their ideals. In this deeply humane novel, the breadth of Amy Waldman's cast of characters is matched by her startling ability to conjure individual lives from their own points of view. A striking portrait of a city-and a country-fractured by old hatreds and new struggles, The Submission is a major novel by an important new talent.

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Reviews

The Submission reads as if the author had embraced Tom Wolfe's famous call for a new social realism...and in doing so has come up with a story that has more verisimilitude, more political resonance, and way more heart than Mr. Wolfe's own 1987 bestseller, The Bonfire of the Vanities. -- New York Times Book Review A coherent, timely, and fascinating examination of a grieving America's relationship with itself. Waldman...excels at involving the reader in vibrant dialogues in which the level of the debate is high and the consequences significant. -- Washington Post A gorgeously written novel of ideas...The Submission is sure to generate a lot of discussion in book clubs across the land. -- NPR A masterful debut...Waldman unspools her story with the truth-bound grit of a seasoned journalist and the elegance of a born novelist. -- Entertainment Weekly Addictively readable...Not unlike The Wire's David Simon...Waldman has an eye for the less sound bite-worthy but crucial ways in which ideology and influence make their imprint on the world. -- Vogue Gripping, deeply intelligent...Panoramic in scope but thrillingly light on its feet...[A] dazzling tapestry of a grieving city. -- Marie Claire Poised and commanding...A stellar debut. Waldman's book reflects a much-needed understanding of American paranoia in the post-9/11 world. -- Kirkus Reviews Waldman addresses with a refreshing frankness thorny moral questions and ethical ironies without resorting to breathless hyperbole. -- Publishers Weekly

A masterful debut...Waldman unspools her story with the truth-bound grit of a seasoned journalist and the elegance of a born novelist. -- Entertainment Weekly Gripping, deeply intelligent...Panoramic in scope but thrillingly light on its feet...[A] dazzling tapestry of a grieving city. -- Marie Claire Addictively readable...Not unlike The Wire's David Simon...Waldman has an eye for the less sound bite-worthy but crucial ways in which ideology and influence make their imprint on the world. -- Vogue Poised and commanding...A stellar debut. Waldman's book reflects a much-needed understanding of American paranoia in the post-9/11 world. -- Kirkus Reviews Waldman addresses with a refreshing frankness thorny moral questions and ethical ironies without resorting to breathless hyperbole. -- Publishers Weekly The Submission reads as if the author had embraced Tom Wolfe's famous call for a new social realism...and in doing so has come up with a story that has more verisimilitude, more political resonance, and way more heart than Mr. Wolfe's own 1987 bestseller, The Bonfire of the Vanities. -- New York Times Book Review A gorgeously written novel of ideas...The Submission is sure to generate a lot of discussion in book clubs across the land. -- NPR A coherent, timely, and fascinating examination of a grieving America's relationship with itself. Waldman...excels at involving the reader in vibrant dialogues in which the level of the debate is high and the consequences significant. -- Washington Post

A coherent, timely, and fascinating examination of a grieving America's relationship with itself. Waldman...excels at involving the reader in vibrant dialogues in which the level of the debate is high and the consequences significant. -- Washington Post A gorgeously written novel of ideas...The Submission is sure to generate a lot of discussion in book clubs across the land. -- NPR The Submission reads as if the author had embraced Tom Wolfe's famous call for a new social realism...and in doing so has come up with a story that has more verisimilitude, more political resonance, and way more heart than Mr. Wolfe's own 1987 bestseller, The Bonfire of the Vanities. -- New York Times Book Review Waldman addresses with a refreshing frankness thorny moral questions and ethical ironies without resorting to breathless hyperbole. -- Publishers Weekly Poised and commanding...A stellar debut. Waldman's book reflects a much-needed understanding of American paranoia in the post-9/11 world. -- Kirkus Reviews Addictively readable...Not unlike The Wire's David Simon...Waldman has an eye for the less sound bite-worthy but crucial ways in which ideology and influence make their imprint on the world. -- Vogue Gripping, deeply intelligent...Panoramic in scope but thrillingly light on its feet...[A] dazzling tapestry of a grieving city. -- Marie Claire A masterful debut...Waldman unspools her story with the truth-bound grit of a seasoned journalist and the elegance of a born novelist. -- Entertainment Weekly

Author Information

Amy Waldman was co-chief of the South Asia bureau of the New York Times. Her fiction has appeared in the Atlantic and Boston Review and is anthologized in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010. She lives with her family in Brooklyn. Bernadette Dunne is the winner of more than a dozen AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway.

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