The Submission

Amy Waldman's novel THE SUBMISSION (New York, 2011), a fictional "alternative history" of the aftermath of 9/11 in New York City, is structured a bit like a geodesic dome or an igloo: it circles around a large cast of characters who are each dealt with at intervals and whose paths occasionally cross, sometimes by chance, sometimes by their deliberate choices. It also resembles the fine movie LOVE ACTUALLY (2003), which has a similarly large cast, shown in a similar kind of rotation.

Within this large cast, two characters are the most important: Claire Burwell, a widow whose husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Center's towers on 9/11, and Mohammad ("Mo") Khan, an American Muslim architect whose anonymously submitted design was chosen as the winner for the 9/11 Memorial. Claire, the mother of two young children, is a prominent and forceful juror on the committee that selected Khan's design.

Other key characters include the unscrupulously ambitious female governor of New York, the unsavory reporter who works for the NY POST, the wishy-washy liberal editor of the NEW YORKER, the radio personality/bigot-stirrer who is meant to resemble Rush Limbaugh, the female Muslim lawyer who helps Khan, the Muslim widow of a Bangledeshi worker who died when the Twin Towers collapsed, the insecure but outspoken Irish-American brother of a fireman who also died in the collapse, several other members of the selection jury and its leader ... and relatives, friends, associates, and neighbors of these people.

Most of these characters are presented in a tepidly realistic manner through dialogue and an omniscient narrator's summary of their inner thoughts and feelings, but about fifteen percent of them are caricatures of professional and ethnic and political "types." I found this shifting back and forth between realism and satire a bit annoying.

On very rare occasions, as the novel's central struggle unfolds between pro-Khan factions and anti-Khan factions, a character will say or do something that is emotionally gripping or emotionally touching. For the most part, sadly, this novel does not make us care about its characters one way or the other. We are, as it were, "kept at a distance" from them the great majority of the time, perhaps by the author's intent, perhaps despite her efforts to bring us in closer.

As a fictional alternative history, THE SUBMISSION extends into the near future where Claire Burwell's children have grown up and where she and Mo Khan are in middle age. All the controversies have died down; several of the opponents are dead; others are prospering in new ways; some have disappeared from view. Thankfully, the closing scene of this book is its most emotionally touching.

NOTE: Two relatively minor technical points may annoy a few readers of this novel. First, the omniscient narrator often adopts the common (mis)usage of substituting "like" for "as" and "as if." Further, this omniscient narrator likes to "decorate" some passages of the narrative with metaphors of various kinds (e.g., one character's movements are described as "eeling"). While the great mystery author P. D. James often does this sort of decorating as well, I personally prefer metaphors to be ascribed to the viewpoints of an author's characters (e.g., in MY FAIR LADY, Prof. Henry Higgins sings of meeting his former student at a ball: "Oozing charm from every pore / He OILED his way across the floor!").

Amy Waldman's novel THE SUBMISSION (New York, 2011), a fictional "alternative history" of the aftermath of 9/11 in New York City, is structured a bit like a geodesic dome or an igloo: it circles around a large cast of characters who are each dealt with at intervals and whose paths occasionally cross, sometimes by chance, sometimes by their deliberate choices. It also resembles the fine movie LOVE ACTUALLY (2003), which has a similarly large cast, shown in a similar kind of rotation.

Within this large cast, two characters are the most important: Claire Burwell, a widow whose husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Center's towers on 9/11, and Mohammad ("Mo") Khan, an American Muslim architect whose anonymously submitted design was chosen as the winner for the 9/11 Memorial. Claire, the mother of two young children, is a prominent and forceful juror on the committee that selected Khan's design.

Other key characters include the unscrupulously ambitious female governor of New York, the unsavory reporter who works for the NY POST, the wishy-washy liberal editor of the NEW YORKER, the radio personality/bigot-stirrer who is meant to resemble Rush Limbaugh, the female Muslim lawyer who helps Khan, the Muslim widow of a Bangledeshi worker who died when the Twin Towers collapsed, the insecure but outspoken Irish-American brother of a fireman who also died in the collapse, several other members of the selection jury and its leader ... and relatives, friends, associates, and neighbors of these people.

Most of these characters are presented in a tepidly realistic manner through dialogue and an omniscient narrator's summary of their inner thoughts and feelings, but about fifteen percent of them are caricatures of professional and ethnic and political "types." I found this shifting back and forth between realism and satire a bit annoying.

On very rare occasions, as the novel's central struggle unfolds between pro-Khan factions and anti-Khan factions, a character will say or do something that is emotionally gripping or emotionally touching. For the most part, sadly, this novel does not make us care about its characters one way or the other. We are, as it were, "kept at a distance" from them the great majority of the time, perhaps by the author's intent, perhaps despite her efforts to bring us in closer.

As a fictional alternative history, THE SUBMISSION extends into the near future where Claire Burwell's children have grown up and where she and Mo Khan are in middle age. All the controversies have died down; several of the opponents are dead; others are prospering in new ways; some have disappeared from view. Thankfully, the closing scene of this book is its most emotionally touching.

NOTE: Two relatively minor technical points may annoy a few readers of this novel. First, the omniscient narrator often adopts the common (mis)usage of substituting "like" for "as" and "as if." Further, this omniscient narrator likes to "decorate" some passages of the narrative with metaphors of various kinds (e.g., one character's movements are described as "eeling"). While the great mystery author P. D. James often does this sort of decorating as well, I personally prefer metaphors to be ascribed to the viewpoints of an author's characters (e.g., in MY FAIR LADY, Prof. Henry Higgins sings of meeting his former student at a ball: "Oozing charm from every pore / He OILED his way across the floor!").

Amy Waldman's novel THE SUBMISSION (New York, 2011), a fictional "alternative history" of the aftermath of 9/11 in New York City, is structured a bit like a geodesic dome or an igloo: it circles around a large cast of characters who are each dealt with at intervals and whose paths occasionally cross, sometimes by chance, sometimes by their deliberate choices. It also resembles the fine movie LOVE ACTUALLY (2003), which has a similarly large cast, shown in a similar kind of rotation.

Within this large cast, two characters are the most important: Claire Burwell, a widow whose husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Center's towers on 9/11, and Mohammad ("Mo") Khan, an American Muslim architect whose anonymously submitted design was chosen as the winner for the 9/11 Memorial. Claire, the mother of two young children, is a prominent and forceful juror on the committee that selected Khan's design.

Other key characters include the unscrupulously ambitious female governor of New York, the unsavory reporter who works for the NY POST, the wishy-washy liberal editor of the NEW YORKER, the radio personality/bigot-stirrer who is meant to resemble Rush Limbaugh, the female Muslim lawyer who helps Khan, the Muslim widow of a Bangledeshi worker who died when the Twin Towers collapsed, the insecure but outspoken Irish-American brother of a fireman who also died in the collapse, several other members of the selection jury and its leader ... and relatives, friends, associates, and neighbors of these people.

Most of these characters are presented in a tepidly realistic manner through dialogue and an omniscient narrator's summary of their inner thoughts and feelings, but about fifteen percent of them are caricatures of professional and ethnic and political "types." I found this shifting back and forth between realism and satire a bit annoying.

On very rare occasions, as the novel's central struggle unfolds between pro-Khan factions and anti-Khan factions, a character will say or do something that is emotionally gripping or emotionally touching. For the most part, sadly, this novel does not make us care about its characters one way or the other. We are, as it were, "kept at a distance" from them the great majority of the time, perhaps by the author's intent, perhaps despite her efforts to bring us in closer.

As a fictional alternative history, THE SUBMISSION extends into the near future where Claire Burwell's children have grown up and where she and Mo Khan are in middle age. All the controversies have died down; several of the opponents are dead; others are prospering in new ways; some have disappeared from view. Thankfully, the closing scene of this book is its most emotionally touching.

NOTE: Two relatively minor technical points may annoy a few readers of this novel. First, the omniscient narrator often adopts the common (mis)usage of substituting "like" for "as" and "as if." Further, this omniscient narrator likes to "decorate" some passages of the narrative with metaphors of various kinds (e.g., one character's movements are described as "eeling"). While the great mystery author P. D. James often does this sort of decorating as well, I personally prefer metaphors to be ascribed to the viewpoints of an author's characters (e.g., in MY FAIR LADY, Prof. Henry Higgins sings of meeting his former student at a ball: "Oozing charm from every pore / He OILED his way across the floor!").

Amy Waldman's novel THE SUBMISSION (New York, 2011), a fictional "alternative history" of the aftermath of 9/11 in New York City, is structured a bit like a geodesic dome or an igloo: it circles around a large cast of characters who are each dealt with at intervals and whose paths occasionally cross, sometimes by chance, sometimes by their deliberate choices. It also resembles the fine movie LOVE ACTUALLY (2003), which has a similarly large cast, shown in a similar kind of rotation.

Within this large cast, two characters are the most important: Claire Burwell, a widow whose husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Center's towers on 9/11, and Mohammad ("Mo") Khan, an American Muslim architect whose anonymously submitted design was chosen as the winner for the 9/11 Memorial. Claire, the mother of two young children, is a prominent and forceful juror on the committee that selected Khan's design.

Other key characters include the unscrupulously ambitious female governor of New York, the unsavory reporter who works for the NY POST, the wishy-washy liberal editor of the NEW YORKER, the radio personality/bigot-stirrer who is meant to resemble Rush Limbaugh, the female Muslim lawyer who helps Khan, the Muslim widow of a Bangledeshi worker who died when the Twin Towers collapsed, the insecure but outspoken Irish-American brother of a fireman who also died in the collapse, several other members of the selection jury and its leader ... and relatives, friends, associates, and neighbors of these people.

Most of these characters are presented in a tepidly realistic manner through dialogue and an omniscient narrator's summary of their inner thoughts and feelings, but about fifteen percent of them are caricatures of professional and ethnic and political "types." I found this shifting back and forth between realism and satire a bit annoying.

On very rare occasions, as the novel's central struggle unfolds between pro-Khan factions and anti-Khan factions, a character will say or do something that is emotionally gripping or emotionally touching. For the most part, sadly, this novel does not make us care about its characters one way or the other. We are, as it were, "kept at a distance" from them the great majority of the time, perhaps by the author's intent, perhaps despite her efforts to bring us in closer.

As a fictional alternative history, THE SUBMISSION extends into the near future where Claire Burwell's children have grown up and where she and Mo Khan are in middle age. All the controversies have died down; several of the opponents are dead; others are prospering in new ways; some have disappeared from view. Thankfully, the closing scene of this book is its most emotionally touching.

NOTE: Two relatively minor technical points may annoy a few readers of this novel. First, the omniscient narrator often adopts the common (mis)usage of substituting "like" for "as" and "as if." Further, this omniscient narrator likes to "decorate" some passages of the narrative with metaphors of various kinds (e.g., one character's movements are described as "eeling"). While the great mystery author P. D. James often does this sort of decorating as well, I personally prefer metaphors to be ascribed to the viewpoints of an author's characters (e.g., in MY FAIR LADY, Prof. Henry Higgins sings of meeting his former student at a ball: "Oozing charm from every pore / He OILED his way across the floor!").

Amy Waldman's novel THE SUBMISSION (New York, 2011), a fictional "alternative history" of the aftermath of 9/11 in New York City, is structured a bit like a geodesic dome or an igloo: it circles around a large cast of characters who are each dealt with at intervals and whose paths occasionally cross, sometimes by chance, sometimes by their deliberate choices. It also resembles the fine movie LOVE ACTUALLY (2003), which has a similarly large cast, shown in a similar kind of rotation.

Within this large cast, two characters are the most important: Claire Burwell, a widow whose husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Center's towers on 9/11, and Mohammad ("Mo") Khan, an American Muslim architect whose anonymously submitted design was chosen as the winner for the 9/11 Memorial. Claire, the mother of two young children, is a prominent and forceful juror on the committee that selected Khan's design.

Other key characters include the unscrupulously ambitious female governor of New York, the unsavory reporter who works for the NY POST, the wishy-washy liberal editor of the NEW YORKER, the radio personality/bigot-stirrer who is meant to resemble Rush Limbaugh, the female Muslim lawyer who helps Khan, the Muslim widow of a Bangledeshi worker who died when the Twin Towers collapsed, the insecure but outspoken Irish-American brother of a fireman who also died in the collapse, several other members of the selection jury and its leader ... and relatives, friends, associates, and neighbors of these people.

Most of these characters are presented in a tepidly realistic manner through dialogue and an omniscient narrator's summary of their inner thoughts and feelings, but about fifteen percent of them are caricatures of professional and ethnic and political "types." I found this shifting back and forth between realism and satire a bit annoying.

On very rare occasions, as the novel's central struggle unfolds between pro-Khan factions and anti-Khan factions, a character will say or do something that is emotionally gripping or emotionally touching. For the most part, sadly, this novel does not make us care about its characters one way or the other. We are, as it were, "kept at a distance" from them the great majority of the time, perhaps by the author's intent, perhaps despite her efforts to bring us in closer.

As a fictional alternative history, THE SUBMISSION extends into the near future where Claire Burwell's children have grown up and where she and Mo Khan are in middle age. All the controversies have died down; several of the opponents are dead; others are prospering in new ways; some have disappeared from view. Thankfully, the closing scene of this book is its most emotionally touching.

NOTE: Two relatively minor technical points may annoy a few readers of this novel. First, the omniscient narrator often adopts the common (mis)usage of substituting "like" for "as" and "as if." Further, this omniscient narrator likes to "decorate" some passages of the narrative with metaphors of various kinds (e.g., one character's movements are described as "eeling"). While the great mystery author P. D. James often does this sort of decorating as well, I personally prefer metaphors to be ascribed to the viewpoints of an author's characters (e.g., in MY FAIR LADY, Prof. Henry Higgins sings of meeting his former student at a ball: "Oozing charm from every pore / He OILED his way across the floor!").

This book is an example of the books I am not burning to read that turns out to be better than the gotta read it NOW buzz books. I had heard of this book several years ago and noted that it sounded vaguely interesting. A few weeks ago I found it on sale and decided to try it. I was impressed.

My first thought while reading the book is that this author knows her cultures. As I neared the end of the book, I chanced to read the biographical statement and realized that she is an accomplished journalist in South Asia. Of course. I live in a Muslim community. Though at times her coverage of Muslim community "issues" (wife abuse, blaming outsiders for problems etc) is glossed over, the presentation was fair and accurate albeit unnecessary to include some of these smaller issues as minor plot filler. There is a clash of communities here, but Waldman has a pretty good grasp of the flavor of each community.

It is occasionally apparent that this is a debut novel. There are flashes of brilliance and flashes of what the? One scene, where the secular Muslim winner of the competition to design a 9/11 memorial decides to shave off his beard before the memorial committee hearing, had me asking myself if this was indeed written by a first time author because the scene encompassed so much: the physical description of his skin being laid bare and exposed and the symbolic resonance of him giving in to convention and losing himself. However, the ending employed all too convenient devices that screamed a major effort at pulling off an emotional ending. The novel rather unraveled for me at the end. On the other hand there are a lot of themes brought up in the novel: identity, fighting for your principles, what is an American, what is a Muslim, should a Muslim have to explain himself.
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In 2010 there was great controversy in the United States when the Muslim community proposed to build an Islamic centre near Ground Zero. Perhaps that episode was the inspiration for this book, published in 2011. It begins with a committee choosing, from an anonymous shortlist of two, a design for a memorial to the victims of 9/11. One of them has the theme of a Void; the other is a memorial Garden The members of the committee are divided - each group puts up a pretentious-sounding philosophical defence for their chosen design. At the end the Garden design wins by a majority - and they find that the name of the architect was Mohammad Khan. Consternation: though they know nothing about him, how would it look to the public (and to the likelihood of raising the money for the memorial) to commission the work from someone with an Islamic name? The members of the committee are divided about this.

Switch to the unpleasant experiences of Mohammad ("Mo") after 9/11 - the crude suspicion, his own struggle between his feeling of insecurity and his forced politeness on the one hand and his stifled rage on the other: he is a totally secular and unpolitical American citizen. The architectural firm for which he works had even sent him to Afghanistan to compete for the design of a new and more secure American Embassy, and he speculates why it had particularly chosen him for that task. But there are now dimensions to his image of himself which had never occurred to him before. He is more aware of being a Muslim; and Muslims back him until an unguarded remark he made about the Koran bring the rage of Muslim fanatics all over the world upon him.

We also get the back-stories of many other people: of members of the committee, like Paul, the banker-chairman of the committee, or Claire who had lost her husband on 9/11 and was on the jury to represent relatives of the bereaved families: initially she was the leading supporter on the committee for the Garden design. There are stories of other people who have lost relatives: an Irish-American family, and one of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

When the choice of a Muslim architect is leaked to the press, of course all hell breaks loose, first in the United States, and then globally. We meet new characters - those who whip up the campaign against the choice, the journalist and politicians who get in on the act: there is a particularly treacherous journalist and particularly opportunist state governor. Mohammad needs police protection.

There are demonstrations and counter-demonstrations. The original protagonists on each side are made uncomfortable by the vehemence of their supporters. The author has thought of every reasonable and every bigoted, every cool and every emotional argument on each side.

Someone discovers the importance of gardens in the Islamic world and suggests that this design might actually be a tribute to the Muslim terrorists who died in carrying out their attack on the Twin Towers. This suggestion makes the whole concept deeply divisive when the whole idea had been that it should be a united act of commemoration.

Some of Mohammad's backers - influential Muslims among them - waver, wanting hm to withdraw his submission. There is a particularly subtle portrait of Claire, as she begins to see both sides of the question, though the origin of this is not so much intellectual as her psychological uncertainty about what to think about Mohammad, who is too proud to make any statement about what his Garden "means" or publicly to give his opinion on 9/11. We have to wait for the fine final section of the book (which, incidentally and rather oddly, appears to be set in around 2023 and suggests that by then Islamophobia in the United States had died down) to discover whether Mohammad had made his submission to public opinion. (There should be no need to point out the irony that the word "Islam" literally means "submission".)

The book may be a trifle too long and some of the arguments repeated a little too often; but it is both very sophisticated and very readable.

The idea was really good but in a way the book looses itself on the way. Too many words, too many stories intertwined, and in the end what really mattered (to me of course) was not what I got. I didn't even liked most of the main characters so much, and the one I loved didn't last enough....

L'idea credo fosse veramente buona, ma il libro si perde per strada. Troppe parole, troppe storie intrecciate e alla fine, quello che ho letto non é stato quello che mi importava sapere. Inoltre non mi piacevano nemmeno la maggior parte dei personaggi e l'unico che mi piaceva non é nemmeno durato tanto....

Two years after an unnamed terrorist attack on New York, a jury has convened to choose a suitable memorial for the victims. The jury is comprised of artists, politicos, historians, a representative of the families who lost loved ones, clergy, and so forth. After reviewing and debating 5,000 anonymous designs, they have finally arrived at a selection. With excitement, they open the sealed envelope to see who the winning designer/architect is. His name is Mohammed Khan, an American citizen born and raised in Virginia. Cue the firestorm.

This debut novel was written by a former NYT bureau chief. Ms. Waldman provides intense scrutiny of America's attitudes towards terrorism, Muslims, immigrants, and prejudice from every imaginable angle and viewpoint, and her unflattering perceptions are painfully on target. As much as I wanted there to be a good guy in this tale, nobody comes out a winner.

The Submission is a hugely thought provoking read. (It would be terrific fodder for a serious book group.) Months after reading it, I'm still angry about the behavior of fictional Americans in an entirely fictional scenario. Waldman's got our number. Her depiction of what would happen given the premise above strode perfectly the boundary between reality and satire. And it was that subtle satirical edge, perhaps, that made the story all the more believable. Who hasn't turned on CNN and thought, "This can't possibly be happening?"

This is a novel entirely about America in the wake of 9/11, without ever once using the phrase "9/11." I actually read it on the tenth anniversary of the tragedy as my own small memorial to the memory of those lost. What it really reminded me of, however, is how much our society has lost in the decade since those terrible, terrible events. This book absolutely infuriated me, and I am confident it will stick with me for a very long time. And that is why it made my best books of the year list.

Amy Waldman's novel THE SUBMISSION (New York, 2011), a fictional "alternative history" of the aftermath of 9/11 in New York City, is structured a bit like a geodesic dome or an igloo: it circles around a large cast of characters who are each dealt with at intervals and whose paths occasionally cross, sometimes by chance, sometimes by their deliberate choices. It also resembles the fine movie LOVE ACTUALLY (2003), which has a similarly large cast, shown in a similar kind of rotation.

Within this large cast, two characters are the most important: Claire Burwell, a widow whose husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Center's towers on 9/11, and Mohammad ("Mo") Khan, an American Muslim architect whose anonymously submitted design was chosen as the winner for the 9/11 Memorial. Claire, the mother of two young children, is a prominent and forceful juror on the committee that selected Khan's design.

Other key characters include the unscrupulously ambitious female governor of New York, the unsavory reporter who works for the NY POST, the wishy-washy liberal editor of the NEW YORKER, the radio personality/bigot-stirrer who is meant to resemble Rush Limbaugh, the female Muslim lawyer who helps Khan, the Muslim widow of a Bangledeshi worker who died when the Twin Towers collapsed, the insecure but outspoken Irish-American brother of a fireman who also died in the collapse, several other members of the selection jury and its leader ... and relatives, friends, associates, and neighbors of these people.

Most of these characters are presented in a tepidly realistic manner through dialogue and an omniscient narrator's summary of their inner thoughts and feelings, but about fifteen percent of them are caricatures of professional and ethnic and political "types." I found this shifting back and forth between realism and satire a bit annoying.

On very rare occasions, as the novel's central struggle unfolds between pro-Khan factions and anti-Khan factions, a character will say or do something that is emotionally gripping or emotionally touching. For the most part, sadly, this novel does not make us care about its characters one way or the other. We are, as it were, "kept at a distance" from them the great majority of the time, perhaps by the author's intent, perhaps despite her efforts to bring us in closer.

As a fictional alternative history, THE SUBMISSION extends into the near future where Claire Burwell's children have grown up and where she and Mo Khan are in middle age. All the controversies have died down; several of the opponents are dead; others are prospering in new ways; some have disappeared from view. Thankfully, the closing scene of this book is its most emotionally touching.

NOTE: Two relatively minor technical points may annoy a few readers of this novel. First, the omniscient narrator often adopts the common (mis)usage of substituting "like" for "as" and "as if." Further, this omniscient narrator likes to "decorate" some passages of the narrative with metaphors of various kinds (e.g., one character's movements are described as "eeling"). While the great mystery author P. D. James often does this sort of decorating as well, I personally prefer metaphors to be ascribed to the viewpoints of an author's characters (e.g., in MY FAIR LADY, Prof. Henry Higgins sings of meeting his former student at a ball: "Oozing charm from every pore / He OILED his way across the floor!").

I enjoyed this first novel, in which Amy Waldman captures the craziness that swirled around the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Her premise is that, after much controversy, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, the committee appointed to approve the design for New York’s 9-11 memorial finally selects one of the anonymous submissions only to learn that the winning memorial was designed by an American Muslim. All hell, as you might imagine, ensues.

I usually don’t read “9-11 books” because, even after all this time, the shock and pain of that day is too easily evoked, and I just don’t like feeling it again. But this story is set two years later, when feelings are still raw but life has gone on.

It takes lots of characters to tell the story, and Waldman works to make them rounded, but there’s still a bit of a Central Casting feel: the 9-11 widow, the retired businessman who heads the committee, the art experts, the brother of one of the victims who’s made a life out of being the brother of one of the victims, the crazy right-wing nut job who’s abetted by the crazy right-wing nut job radio talk show host, the shallow and ambitious reporter, and on and on. But historically all those kinds of people were in evidence in the aftermath of the attacks, and Waldman allows all sides to get their oars in. Waldman complicates what could have been a stick-figure story by making most of the characters’ motives not nearly as straightforward as they seem and by exploring questions of identity that are deeper than the stock character labels.

Virginia-born Mohammed Khan, the architect who designed the winning submission, has motives for submitting his design that are as complex as those of any of the other characters. In fact, he only begins to acknowledge his own motives as the story goes on. His identity issues cause him to behave in some stubbornly self-defeating ways as the controversy over his design ramps up.

Sometimes funny, sometimes deadly serious, Waldman’s novel shows us Americans at war with ourselves over what it means to be Americans.

"Perhaps this was the secret to being at peace: want nothing but what is given to you." So observes a woman named Asma Haque, an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh whose husband died on September 11 in New York City. Asma is a pivotal character in Amy Waldman's much-discussed first novel "The Submission" (2011). Set two years after September 11, Waldman's novel explores the commemoration of the event. A carefully chosen blind jury choses a design for a geometrically-shaped garden to commemorate the tragedy of the day. When it made its decision, the jury was unaware that an American Muslim, Mohammad ("Mo") Kahn, an architect and a secular individual, had designed and "submitted" the proposal. Waldman's novel explores the outcry and controversy that resulted from the selection of a Muslim to design a memorial to the victims of the terrorist attack.

It is difficult to write a novel about a political event still fresh in the mind. Even more so, it is difficult to write fiction convincingly when setting up a problematical hypothesis and exploring its claimed implications and possibilities. Such situations are more frequently explored as law school or ethics class problems (the problem of the "runaway trolley", for example, for those familiar with current literature in ethics), rather than in novels demanding the development of stories, specifics and characters. There is a danger of didacticism. I thought Waldman's novel alternatively fell into this predicament and then managed to escape from it. I was in turns infuriated and moved. Much of the book is polemical with the chief targets, as might be expected, American conservatives. But the book, however falteringly, rises above politics. The novel is thoughtful and absorbing and, with some reluctance, I thought it succeeded.

Although the novel includes stereotypical character types and situations, the protagonists are generally fleshed out sufficiently to become believable. The primary character, Mohammad Kahn, is a gifted architect and an assimilated American who can be stubborn and set in his path when he is convinced he is right -- as in the scenario developed in the book, he may well be. Other characters include a rabble-rousing conservative talk show host and several mostly unsympathetic opponents to Kahn's design who act in the book from their undifferentiated hostility to Islam. The book's characters include an ambitious, agressive reporter who helps fan the controversy, members of the jury who must respond to the public outcry, the Governor of New York, a woman and a Democrat who tries to exploit the crisis to promote her presidential ambitions, and more. Underlying it all is trying to find the "right" thing to do in an apparently intractible situation. Waldman explores different ways of determining what might be the "right" thing to do. Thus some of the characters want to act from what they see as principle, with no compromise. Other characters think that determining the "right" solution must include an element of pragmatism and compromise, including seeing the issue in part from the perspective of one's opponents. Still other characters act primarily from expediency or self-interest.

While focusing on the planned memorial, Waldman's novel also examines other issues in American culture and looks at various ways of resolving differences. Thus the primary secondary issue of the book, not the only one, is gender and the unresolved tensions not far below the surface in the contemporary United States in the way people see gender roles. Some of the book is painful with moments of stridency alternating with moments of a good amount of insight.

The studied ambiguity of the novel's title tells much about it. At its simplest level the "Submission" refers to Mohammad Kahn's entry in the memorial design competition. "Submission" to the Will of God is also a key component of Islam. But the broader meaning of "submission" involves self and self-identity and when to act upon them and when they might be given up. Questions of individual identity and selfhood permeate American life and this novel. Waldman's book explores compromising one's principles, even if deeply held, and when this may be properly done. Again, in Waldman's book the question occurs in the context of the memorial and in the context of various gender-related issues. The deeper question is differentiating principle from selfhood, an issue at the center of a good deal of religious and philosophical thought. It is the question which Asma Hague tries to answer in the sentence which opens this review. It is also a question that Mohammad Kahn asks himself on several occasions, most prominently during a visit to Afghanistan that is not recounted until late in the novel. Nonreligious himself, Kahn observes an Afghan man prostrate himself in prayer in a lonely garden. Absorbed in prayer, the man is oblivious to his surroundings. Waldman and Kahn observe:

"But today, the Afghan, deep in his prostrations, did not acnowledge Mo, even as together they formed a line, a wall, a mosque; he cared not at all for Mo's judgment. He had forgotten himself, and this was the truest submission."

A frustrating but good novel, "The Submission" reminded me of the difficult tasks of letting go of oneself, both in individual and in communal life.

Robin Friedman

The inconceivable happened - a terrorist attack on U.S. soil - and two years later it is compounded in Amy Waldman's debut novel, The Submission. A Muslim-American architect is anonymously selected to design the World Trade Center memorial evoking moral and ethical dilemmas portrayed clearly and vividly by Waldman.

A jury comprised of artists, government officials, philanthropists, and Claire Burwell, the only member representing the families of the dead, have rigorously reviewed 5,000 applications for the tribute at Ground Zero. Each jury member is defined and positioned within the story through dialogue and spare but revealing description during intense deliberations escalating after the winner is selected based on his proposal and renderings.

"It's absolutely unconscionable to say he should be denied if he won," says a juror [19] of Mohammad Khan whose appropriateness for the commission is challenged. A non-practicing Muslim, Khan was born in Virginia and emphasizes this when he is detained without cause at the airport. Waiting to be released he reviews his minor sins - ignoring the speed limit, over-deducting on his taxes and shoplifting a candy bar as a child. "His effort to avoid being seen as a criminal was making him act like one, feel like one." [27]

Waldman, a journalist (former Co-Chief South Asia Bureau of The New York Times), illuminates the potent influence the media have on how people perceive and react to news. The unlikable blowhard chairman (his quirks and weakness render him the weak link in the novel) of the jury has mandated a press embargo until a decision as to Khan's suitability for the job is reached. The story is leaked and dormant bigotry long secreted under the banner of tolerance unleashes and drives the story forward.

The Submission is beautifully written paralleling reality so closely and credibly that the reader forgets this is fiction and surrenders to emotions that are deservedly triggered without ploys or gimmicks. The tragedy of 9/11 has been chronicled and fictionalized by acclaimed authors including Jonathan Safran Foer and Colum McCann and Waldman's novel deserves its place - and widespread readership - alongside her award-winning colleagues.

Dindy Yokel [January 2012]

Time taken to read - 4 days

A competition to design a memorial for the victims of 9/11 is set and a jury to pick the winner. The anonymous design is by an architect called Mohammad Khan, behind closed doors the jurors argue over the impossibility of this man being allowed to design it. What follows is a lot of anger, distrust, hurt, hate, racism and arguments/debates over what is right morally and if the design should be allowed or even announced.

I loved the start of this book. It raised so many questions and an inner debate, if I was on that jury would I have a problem with it? Would I be suspicious? Or would I be outraged on Mohammad's behalf, an American being wronged because of his religion and his appearance. I didn't like how there wasn't a lot of background on the characters but I suppose it may have taken away from the subject matter but I would have liked to know more about Mohammad and what made him the way he was (and why he reacted as he did).

You read a lot of the characters opinions as the book goes on and the debate for and against it and also how Mohammad reacts to it all and his perception. To be honest, nearing the end I started to waver and get a little bored by it. The same issues kept going round and then the end seemed to jump a fair bit. I would have liked to have had more attention paid to the final outcome of the memorial and how it came about but felt it skimmed on that and started giving us a bit more on the characters when the whole book had been about the memorial and reactions rather than any kind of depth of the characters.

It is still a very interesting read, for the most part and it certainly makes you think (I even learned a little about a different religion). I think it would make for an excellent book group read as there is much to discuss and debate on. 3/5 for me this time and thanks to Waterstones Book Club for sending this my way.

I really enjoyed this novel. It grabbed me at the start as few recent novels have. In the first chapter, a panel chooses the design of a 9/11 memorial, only to find out the the architect is Mohammad Khan, a Muslim. That's when the fireworks begin. The author moves between the lives of key characters, and the bigger picture of the media firestorm that ensues. My only criticism is that partway through the book, the emphasis moved away from the inner lives of the characters and widened its lens to cover a more societal look at the conflicts that arise. The politics of hate and sensationalist journalism both look bad, as they should. I found that part interesting, but not as much when the focus was on the primary characters (the one surviving spouse who served on the committee and the architect himself). Eventually, the story becomes more personal again, ending strongly. I enjoyed this book so much while reading it. I found myself working hard to find odd minutes here and there to read some more. Now that I am finished, I know that this novel will stay with me. I do not give very many five star reviews, but this earned it for me.

This is a novel that demands a lot of its readers. That's not to say Amy Waldman's The Submission is difficult or dull -- in fact, it's the polar opposite of both. What it is, though, is a novel that makes readers think; that asks readers to challenge long-held beliefs and ideas, no matter how firmly they think those ideas are held. Notions you may judge to be obvious, aren't. And ideas that may have seemed odious suddenly may not seem that way either. To me, it's one of the best kinds novel: A novel that feels perfectly in tune with how our society operates (for better and, mostly, worse), and that demands that you confront your own feelings and beliefs.

Enough with abstractions. Here's the deal: Two years after the attacks of 9/11, a jury convenes to select a design for the memorial to be built at Ground Zero. The jury selects (without knowledge of the designer, since the submission process was anonymous) a design for a beautiful garden with flowing canals and the victims' names written on the walls in the shapes of the twin towers. Most everyone's happy, until...envelope please...the designer is revealed to be a Muslim. Or at least he's a guy with a "Muslim name": Mohammed Kahn.

The public outcry is immediate. And furious. How could a Muslim be allowed to design an "Islamic paradise" to effectively memorialize the "jihadist martyrs," not the victims, right-wing conspiracy theorists ask? Obviously, not all Muslims are terrorists, you bigoted fools, say Mo's advocates. So why shouldn't Mo, an irreligious American architect, be allowed to build his design, since the design was judged the winner based on aesthetics, not politics or religion? But Muslims are responsible for 9/11, counters the opposition, so it'd be, at best, insensitive,and at worst, horribly insulting, to allow a Muslim designer to memorialize them.

This culture war is the basis of the novel, and the frenzy that follows is examined through the eyes of several New Yorkers -- including Mo himself, and Claire Burwell, a 9/11 widow who is the leading proponent of Mo's design. But both of these characters begin seeing themselves through the lens the increasingly polarized public sees them. They begin to question and doubt, to yield, especially in Mo's case, to others' (often stereotypical) visions of them.

A Bangledeshi immigrant who lost her husband in the attacks, a woman who runs an organization called Save America From Islam, a buffoonish right-wing talk show host, and a down-on-his-luck blue collar fella named Sean who lost his brother round out the cast of characters that give this novel a really complete feel. And the media circus (another character is a less-than-ethical journalist) and the political wrangling (the governor of New York has national ambitions and is constantly waiting to see which way the wind blows and maneuvering politically) feel spot on. As do the difficult questions the novel raises.

Are moral absolutes really absolute? Why is bigotry so wrong (and idiotic...and harmful)? Can art ever really be separated from artist? The readers must grapple, especially those of the conservative persuasion, at whom Waldman often takes aim.

Much like the politically charged environment portrayed, this novel itself was also divisive. It's the only book I've seen wind up on a "most overrated novel of the year" list, as well as several "best of the year" lists. I tend toward the latter -- perhaps not one of the best books I've read this year, but a very, very good one, nonetheless. Waldman (a former journalist) writes lucidly and knows her stuff -- whether architecture or the ins-and-outs of a newsroom. You trust her, even if her characters piss you off. This is highly recommended!

Near the beginning of Amy Waldman's strong novel, one of the characters admits that "he wasn't sure he'd read a novel since THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES." Waldman has obviously read many other things before and since, but she is also clearly influenced by Tom Wolfe's cornucopian novel of race and class in New York City. THE SUBMISSION is equally a New York novel, though its fault lines are religious rather than racial, falling between the Moslem population and the Judaeo-Christian majority. Her premise is that the competition for a 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero, anonymous submissions judged by an independent jury, is won by an architect named Mohammed Khan. A news leak is picked up by a tabloid reporter and the predictable outcry ensues.

Amy Waldman is a cooler writer than Wolfe, less flamboyant but equally intelligent. There is an impressive restraint in the way she follows the ramifications of her theme, not avoiding outsize characters and bigoted viewpoints, but producing subtly nuanced variations of attitude as the various forces come into play. The irony is that the winning design, a peace garden with trees and water (not unlike the design chosen in real life), is an oasis of calm compared to the defiant basalt obelisk that it beat out. But once the garden has been described as a model of the Islamic paradise that the terrorists themselves hoped to attain, even those peaceful qualities now seem a liability.

While the memorial is officially declared to be for the families of the lost ones, only one family representative is selected for the jury: Claire Burwell, a wealthy connoisseur who actually lives outside the boroughs. The jury hopes it can make the decision on aesthetic grounds alone, but of course it can't. The cause of ordinary people is taken up by Sean Gallagher, a Brooklyn rabble-rouser who takes his message to street corners in a desperate attempt to live up to the memory of his firefighter brother. Talk-show hosts and civic leaders chime in. The Governor, Geraldine Bitman, latches on to the controversy as a way of furthering her presidential ambitions. The affair becomes a referendum on American values that is as distressing as it is believable. As one of the more reasonable family members (thank you, Ms. Waldman!) says at the public hearing: "We, who have carried the weight of loss, are now being asked to carry the weight of proving America's tolerance."

And Mohammed Khan himself? Known as Mo, he is an ordinary American, entirely secular, talented but unassuming. But he has an inner core of pride, and the more he is asked to explain or compromise, the less he is willing to do so. This is entirely believable, but it has the unfortunate effect of writing him out of the story too early as an active participant, making the ending a slight disappointment after such magnificent development. But, as she almost always does, Waldman shows the effect of Mo's principles in human terms, transforming political polemic into a genuine novel of feeling: "Sorrow swelled in him, seemed to press against his lungs. He knew he couldn't bend himself to fit her shape. But he didn't know how he could live with the hollow where hers had been."

A hand-picked jury is debating the merits of the various submissions to a design contest for a memorial at ground zero. The jury does not know the identities of the entrants. Claire, whose husband was killed in the 9/11 attacks, lobbies for "the garden" and wins over the majority. The jurists are thrown into a tailspin, however, when they learn that the winner's name is Mohammed Khan--obviously a Muslim. Someone leaks this juicy tidbit to the press before the official announcement, and political bedlam ensues. The author treats this controversy with the seriousness that it deserves and posits two sides to a moral dilemma with no perfect solution. My favorite line is the book is this quotation from a music executive: "'It just makes me uncomfortable, and being uncomfortable makes me even more uncomfortable.'" This perfectly describes my feeling about the situation. We all love that American stands for freedom, but our gut feeling is that having a Muslim-built memorial for a site destroyed by Quran-quoting terrorists is a recipe for disaster. Is the memorial really a martyr's paradise? Such was not Khan's intent, but his motives are not clear to the public, because he's not talking. Born in Virginia, he's indignant that his lineage has caused his allegiance to be called into question. From the public's perspective, he's an enigma, but he's really just too proud to buckle to the scrutiny he deems unfair. Claire, for all her high-minded initial support of Khan, begins to vacillate when a loathsome reporter plants a seed of doubt about Khan's political leanings. The reporter's lack of ethics and her success in duping Claire made me angry. I wanted there to be some non-Muslim who supported him unequivocally. Alas, Khan's egotism and intransigence ensure that even American Muslims ultimately abandon his cause. I love the title and all of its possible meanings. There's a comment in the book that Islam is submission, but isn't all religion submission to a higher power? Then there's also submission to public opinion, to emotion, to ambition, to political pressure--all of which come into play here. My only criticism would be that we never get close enough to Claire or Khan to experience their inner turmoil. The author brings focus more to ourselves and our own principles, and how we as a country and as individuals respond to this type of polarizing argument.

This is the story of Shane, a popular pop singer who hates the limelight and wants out, and a secretary for the band he plays for, Submission, Rhiannon. Shane was a playboy and blackmailed Rhi into marrying him to get her into bed, but when she discovered he was a virgin, he suddenly discovers he has scruples, and pulls away. However, soon, predictably, nature takes its course and they have their way. Afterward, jealousy and predictable obstacles threaten, but everything works out. A subplot about Shane finding his roots in Asia was poorly fleshed out and hardly mentioned except as an afterthought at the end. A standard book but nice if you don't want to think.

I was really looking forward to reading this book when reviews starting cropping up in August, and I was not disappointed. The identity of the winning design of the 9/11 memorial is revealed within the first few chapters of the book, and the momentum builds from that point on. The book itself takes place within the first two years after 9/11, and though we are ten years past the event, I think Amy Waldman developed a very realistic, believable plot line as to what the public's response would be--a resurgence in paranoia and hysteria, a public outcry on the implications of the designer's identity, questions about what it means to be an American, and so on. I thought the character development was great, but I closed the book feeling like the part of Ariana should have been better developed or she should have had a larger role in the book. The ending was in some ways both satisfying and disappointing. If nothing else, I think that readers will walk away from this book wondering how they would respond to the news that an American with Muslim roots (though Mohammed Khan is not a practicing Muslim) created the winning design of a 9/11 memorial and the outcry that would surely follow.

This is a novel that demands a lot of its readers. That's not to say Amy Waldman's The Submission is difficult or dull -- in fact, it's the polar opposite of both. What it is, though, is a novel that makes readers think; that asks readers to challenge long-held beliefs and ideas, no matter how firmly they think those ideas are held. Notions you may judge to be obvious, aren't. And ideas that may have seemed odious suddenly may not seem that way either. To me, it's one of the best kinds novel: A novel that feels perfectly in tune with how our society operates (for better and, mostly, worse), and that demands that you confront your own feelings and beliefs.

Enough with abstractions. Here's the deal: Two years after the attacks of 9/11, a jury convenes to select a design for the memorial to be built at Ground Zero. The jury selects (without knowledge of the designer, since the submission process was anonymous) a design for a beautiful garden with flowing canals and the victims' names written on the walls in the shapes of the twin towers. Most everyone's happy, until...envelope please...the designer is revealed to be a Muslim. Or at least he's a guy with a "Muslim name": Mohammed Kahn.

The public outcry is immediate. And furious. How could a Muslim be allowed to design an "Islamic paradise" to effectively memorialize the "jihadist martyrs," not the victims, right-wing conspiracy theorists ask? Obviously, not all Muslims are terrorists, you bigoted fools, say Mo's advocates. So why shouldn't Mo, an irreligious American architect, be allowed to build his design, since the design was judged the winner based on aesthetics, not politics or religion? But Muslims are responsible for 9/11, counters the opposition, so it'd be, at best, insensitive,and at worst, horribly insulting, to allow a Muslim designer to memorialize them.

This culture war is the basis of the novel, and the frenzy that follows is examined through the eyes of several New Yorkers -- including Mo himself, and Claire Burwell, a 9/11 widow who is the leading proponent of Mo's design. But both of these characters begin seeing themselves through the lens the increasingly polarized public sees them. They begin to question and doubt, to yield, especially in Mo's case, to others' (often stereotypical) visions of them.

A Bangledeshi immigrant who lost her husband in the attacks, a woman who runs an organization called Save America From Islam, a buffoonish right-wing talk show host, and a down-on-his-luck blue collar fella named Sean who lost his brother round out the cast of characters that give this novel a really complete feel. And the media circus (another character is a less-than-ethical journalist) and the political wrangling (the governor of New York has national ambitions and is constantly waiting to see which way the wind blows and maneuvering politically) feel spot on. As do the difficult questions the novel raises.

Are moral absolutes really absolute? Why is bigotry so wrong (and idiotic...and harmful)? Can art ever really be separated from artist? The readers must grapple, especially those of the conservative persuasion, at whom Waldman often takes aim.

Much like the politically charged environment portrayed, this novel itself was also divisive. It's the only book I've seen wind up on a "most overrated novel of the year" list, as well as several "best of the year" lists. I tend toward the latter -- perhaps not one of the best books I've read this year, but a very, very good one, nonetheless. Waldman (a former journalist) writes lucidly and knows her stuff -- whether architecture or the ins-and-outs of a newsroom. You trust her, even if her characters piss you off. This is highly recommended!

Near the beginning of Amy Waldman's strong novel, one of the characters admits that "he wasn't sure he'd read a novel since THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES." Waldman has obviously read many other things before and since, but she is also clearly influenced by Tom Wolfe's cornucopian novel of race and class in New York City. THE SUBMISSION is equally a New York novel, though its fault lines are religious rather than racial, falling between the Moslem population and the Judaeo-Christian majority. Her premise is that the competition for a 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero, anonymous submissions judged by an independent jury, is won by an architect named Mohammed Khan. A news leak is picked up by a tabloid reporter and the predictable outcry ensues.

Amy Waldman is a cooler writer than Wolfe, less flamboyant but equally intelligent. There is an impressive restraint in the way she follows the ramifications of her theme, not avoiding outsize characters and bigoted viewpoints, but producing subtly nuanced variations of attitude as the various forces come into play. The irony is that the winning design, a peace garden with trees and water (not unlike the design chosen in real life), is an oasis of calm compared to the defiant basalt obelisk that it beat out. But once the garden has been described as a model of the Islamic paradise that the terrorists themselves hoped to attain, even those peaceful qualities now seem a liability.

While the memorial is officially declared to be for the families of the lost ones, only one family representative is selected for the jury: Claire Burwell, a wealthy connoisseur who actually lives outside the boroughs. The jury hopes it can make the decision on aesthetic grounds alone, but of course it can't. The cause of ordinary people is taken up by Sean Gallagher, a Brooklyn rabble-rouser who takes his message to street corners in a desperate attempt to live up to the memory of his firefighter brother. Talk-show hosts and civic leaders chime in. The Governor, Geraldine Bitman, latches on to the controversy as a way of furthering her presidential ambitions. The affair becomes a referendum on American values that is as distressing as it is believable. As one of the more reasonable family members (thank you, Ms. Waldman!) says at the public hearing: "We, who have carried the weight of loss, are now being asked to carry the weight of proving America's tolerance."

And Mohammed Khan himself? Known as Mo, he is an ordinary American, entirely secular, talented but unassuming. But he has an inner core of pride, and the more he is asked to explain or compromise, the less he is willing to do so. This is entirely believable, but it has the unfortunate effect of writing him out of the story too early as an active participant, making the ending a slight disappointment after such magnificent development. But, as she almost always does, Waldman shows the effect of Mo's principles in human terms, transforming political polemic into a genuine novel of feeling: "Sorrow swelled in him, seemed to press against his lungs. He knew he couldn't bend himself to fit her shape. But he didn't know how he could live with the hollow where hers had been."

A hand-picked jury is debating the merits of the various submissions to a design contest for a memorial at ground zero. The jury does not know the identities of the entrants. Claire, whose husband was killed in the 9/11 attacks, lobbies for "the garden" and wins over the majority. The jurists are thrown into a tailspin, however, when they learn that the winner's name is Mohammed Khan--obviously a Muslim. Someone leaks this juicy tidbit to the press before the official announcement, and political bedlam ensues. The author treats this controversy with the seriousness that it deserves and posits two sides to a moral dilemma with no perfect solution. My favorite line is the book is this quotation from a music executive: "'It just makes me uncomfortable, and being uncomfortable makes me even more uncomfortable.'" This perfectly describes my feeling about the situation. We all love that American stands for freedom, but our gut feeling is that having a Muslim-built memorial for a site destroyed by Quran-quoting terrorists is a recipe for disaster. Is the memorial really a martyr's paradise? Such was not Khan's intent, but his motives are not clear to the public, because he's not talking. Born in Virginia, he's indignant that his lineage has caused his allegiance to be called into question. From the public's perspective, he's an enigma, but he's really just too proud to buckle to the scrutiny he deems unfair. Claire, for all her high-minded initial support of Khan, begins to vacillate when a loathsome reporter plants a seed of doubt about Khan's political leanings. The reporter's lack of ethics and her success in duping Claire made me angry. I wanted there to be some non-Muslim who supported him unequivocally. Alas, Khan's egotism and intransigence ensure that even American Muslims ultimately abandon his cause. I love the title and all of its possible meanings. There's a comment in the book that Islam is submission, but isn't all religion submission to a higher power? Then there's also submission to public opinion, to emotion, to ambition, to political pressure--all of which come into play here. My only criticism would be that we never get close enough to Claire or Khan to experience their inner turmoil. The author brings focus more to ourselves and our own principles, and how we as a country and as individuals respond to this type of polarizing argument.

This is the story of Shane, a popular pop singer who hates the limelight and wants out, and a secretary for the band he plays for, Submission, Rhiannon. Shane was a playboy and blackmailed Rhi into marrying him to get her into bed, but when she discovered he was a virgin, he suddenly discovers he has scruples, and pulls away. However, soon, predictably, nature takes its course and they have their way. Afterward, jealousy and predictable obstacles threaten, but everything works out. A subplot about Shane finding his roots in Asia was poorly fleshed out and hardly mentioned except as an afterthought at the end. A standard book but nice if you don't want to think.

I was really looking forward to reading this book when reviews starting cropping up in August, and I was not disappointed. The identity of the winning design of the 9/11 memorial is revealed within the first few chapters of the book, and the momentum builds from that point on. The book itself takes place within the first two years after 9/11, and though we are ten years past the event, I think Amy Waldman developed a very realistic, believable plot line as to what the public's response would be--a resurgence in paranoia and hysteria, a public outcry on the implications of the designer's identity, questions about what it means to be an American, and so on. I thought the character development was great, but I closed the book feeling like the part of Ariana should have been better developed or she should have had a larger role in the book. The ending was in some ways both satisfying and disappointing. If nothing else, I think that readers will walk away from this book wondering how they would respond to the news that an American with Muslim roots (though Mohammed Khan is not a practicing Muslim) created the winning design of a 9/11 memorial and the outcry that would surely follow.

A very emotional read. All of these years later, the memory of 9/11 lingers in all its horror. The author compassionately portrays a wide range of people coping with its aftermath. The characters are at once weak, strong, arrogant, principled, and cowardly. The author is excellent at painting human nature in all of its ambiguity. In the end it is a story about what will probably remain an unbridgeable gulf between two disparate sets of ideologies and emotions. There is no happy ending here. Still, a very thought-provoking read.

I need a Kindle because I love to highlight brilliant quotations and observations of humanity in all its beautiful imperfections. But I recycle all my books, paperback and hard cover. So how do I keep Amy Waldman's words at hand? "The Submission" is brave, intrepid, brilliant, compassionate. Amy Waldman was in news(co-chief of the South Asia bureau of the New York Times), but she certainly has a career in fiction awaiting her.

This unusual story asks, "What if the submission of the winning memorial for 9/11, chosen anonymously, turned out to be an American Muslim?"

The answer is not pretty. We see the effects of hidden prejudice on Americans from every niche. The winner, Mohammed Khan is no more Muslim than most New Yorkers are members of the Church of England. Mo, as he prefers to be called, was born and raised in Virginia. He has little contact with the religion of his parents. He has no group of Muslim friends.

When the story leaks to the media, that a Muslim submission has won the competition, the politics begin. The governor, the mayor, the reporters, the Committee for the Victims' Families, all weigh in on how "inappropriate" and "weak" it might seem to choose Mo's lovely vision for the 9/11 memorial, not because people don't like the drawing, not because they don't like Mo, but because they feel that the Muslim world would see the memorial as a victory for themselves, another sign that America is bowing to their power.

This novel forces the reader to think about prejudice, racism, and the way we hide behind others rather than standing up for our true beliefs. The flap over the memorial is the center of the book, but the epilogue is an interesting follow up on Mo's later life.

An absolutely stunning novel of many dimensions, this is a book that belongs to today, this minute, and the future as well.

This book is almost tortuous. Please don't confuse this statement with the idea of the book being "bad", it's just that it is so deeply emotional and hits on so many hot-button issues that it forces the reader to take some emotional stock and to deeply consider feelings such as prejudice, anger, resentment, and grief.

The scaffolding of the story told here is a jury evaluating submissions for a memorial for those who died on 9/11 in New York City. One of the members is Claire Burwell, a highly-visible widow whose husband died in the attacks. Claire seems to be front-and-center as the media face of the 9/11 widows, and Waldman deftly presents this character as tragic while exposing her flaws. You may not like Claire even though she has your sympathy, and placing her in contrast with another, ignored, widow is a stroke of genius.

The other major character in the book is Mohammad Khan, the Muslim-American whose memorial design is chosen by the jury. Khan is another character who is complex, sympathetic, and maddening all at once. This incredibly layered character is truly a wonderful change compared to the one-dimensional types that we usually see in books about 9/11.

The book is populated with an assortment of other characters that come to represent feelings that we may have had from day-to-day if not even minute-to-minute in the time after the 9/11 attacks. Some of these feelings perhaps weren't admirable, but they were human. And humanity is the backbone of this novel. I recommend this book for anyone wanting to examine in more detail how this country and they themselves felt after 9/11.

Amy Waldman has crafted a novel that raises some interesting questions and often ends up being provocative and compelling reading as well, even if it isn't quite as good as it could be -- and is perhaps too timely, with its publication scheduled to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Happily, the novel doesn't dwell on the events of that day, but on their aftermath. (I say happily, as it took me years to stop having nightmares about what I saw standing on the street as plane #2 slammed into the WTC above my head.) It explores some issues I've been wondering about ever since, such as the question of hierarchies of grief -- does one exist, and should it? -- and the sacredness of the site, the survivors and the victims' families. One of Waldman's main characters in this novel is Claire Burwell, the representative of those families on the jury that is charged, a few years after the attacks, with choosing a design for the memorial that will honor their loved ones. But when the winner is finally chosen -- a garden design that Claire has fallen in love with -- it is discovered that the winner is a Muslim architect named Mohammed Khan. To many in New York and the United States, it doesn't matter that he prefers to be known as "Mo" and struggles with fasting on Ramadam -- they are more concerned that his design is really intended as an Islamic garden, meant to symbolize the rewards awaiting the terrorists in the paradise described in the Koran.

Large chunks of this book are predictable: the way the interest groups spring into action to try to manipulate the process, from Muslim-American campaigners to the state's governor; the media's role in fueling the frenzy in search of readers. The two characters I found most compelling and interesting were Asma, an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant and 9/11 widow like Claire and Mo himself, who must struggle both for his artistic identity and his personal identity. Can he be an American, a Muslim and an architect -- or must he compromise on one or more of these roles?

The novel started off slowly for me -- so slowly, in fact, that I put it down after about 45 pages and didn't return to it until after the real-life anniversary was past. But it turned out to be better than I expected, despite those predictable elements, as I should have suspected from the choice of title: Waldman called it "The Submission", not "The Competition" or "The Jury". It's no coincidence that Islam literally means submission, or that the dilemma with which Mo wrestles is over whether to submit to public opinion and withdraw from a competition he has already won. As commission head Paul Rubin notes when the firestorm erupts, "whatever kind of Muslim Khan was, he was now an angry one." And a stubborn one: he refuses to give ground to his obvious opponents or even comfort and reassurance to those who support him and his rights. Even the character of Claire becomes more complex and interesting, as she begins to challenge Mo's stance. "'You want us to trust you even though you won't answer questions about your design -- what it means, where it came from,'" a distressed Claire finally cries out to Mo. He replies, "'But you're only asking those questions because you don't trust me.'" It's a novel about the limitations on our ability to understand each other.

This is a far better novel than I had feared, given that it revolves around such difficult issues and events. Waldman could have succumbed to cheap sentimentality, or taken refuge in ardent patriotism. Instead, she doesn't shy away from awkward and provocative questions and ideas, without losing sight of the nature of the tragedy: that it has been a horrific event not only for those of us who lost friends and family members on the day itself, but for our society as we wrestle with fundamental values. Nor does she take refuge in pat and easy answers. It's not a flawless novel, sometimes trying to cover too much ground and too many characters and events, but I found myself racing through the final pages, eager to discover what happened next. And I was impressed by the nature of her epilogue: too often, these are limp affairs offered up by authors with loose ends and no bright idea about how to tie them up, but Waldman knows just what she is doing with her update, and it works.

This is still too much of an "issues" novel, and has too many bumpy moments, to earn 5 stars, but it's still one I'd recommend even to those who, for whatever reason, still struggle to get through bright, sunny September days without thinking back. A full 4 stars to this commendable effort; I'll be interested to see what Waldman does next.

Well written but at 300 pages, it seemed overly long. Once the premise is set up, we basically read about the reaction from several different character's viewpoints.

And then we do it again.

And then we do it again.

And so on and on and on.

By page 150, I was growing impatient because nothing was really happening; just the characters talking over their issues and viewpoints.

At 100 pages--a novella--I think it would have made for a compelling read. But it's basically a fascinating premise that is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d to 300 pages. The last 20 pages are very insightful when the novel jumps forward and you see how the characters have all fared after making their choices.

But at 300 pages, it can get a bit dull. But well written.

The Submission: A Novel by Amy Waldman received a lot of hype when it first came out. The description of the novel drew me in. I found the connection to the events that occurred on 9/11 to be horrifying, and have found the changes in our lives post 9/11 to be frustrating, and in some cases horrifying. The culture of fear that was forced on our society, which has caused so many to be afraid of travel or afraid of their neighbors troubled me from the beginning. The deaths that resulted from the attack on the towers was tragic, and dizzying in scope.

This is what I believe inspired me to request this from the store Vine. I dived in immediately and and the first thing that struck me was the coldness. To me, the story began in a cold and almost sterile way. There was no feeling. It seemed brisk and empty. But I continued to read. I am not a competitive person, so the description of the competition itself was of little interest to me. I was interested in the people. Especially the people who were creating the art that would describe the feelings of an entire nation on their darkest day.

Then what I perceived as the hate began. Hate and fear that were inspired by nothing more than a name. And the story was ruined for me. To encounter a conundrum is one thing, but for it to be inspired by negative feelings that are in no way the fault of the victim of the hate sickens me. All the more so because there has been so much of it since that horrible day. We have never been as tolerant a country as we would like the world to believe, I think? But 9/11 brought out in worst in many. After the stories of the heroes and the dead, and there were many of both, began the stories of intolerance and hate.

I found myself unable to finish this novel for that reason. It sickened me to the soul. I wanted to read on, to find that it was all a mistake that was resolved in the end. I wanted everything to turn out to be fair and rosy and good. I don't know if it did, or if it did not. I found myself falling back on Nancy Pearl's advice, and setting this one aside. I honestly may be unfair in rating this based on my feelings, but it is the best that I can do. And after all... that is what ratings boil down to at the best of times, one's feelings about a book and the story it tells.

The Submission, a first novel by Amy Waldman, deservedly has received a lot of attention because of the book's timely theme: 9/11. I enjoy reading books that thematically tie to life events: The Hunchback of Notre Dame while sitting next to the gargoyles in Paris; The Decline and Fall of Roman Empire while sitting in the Forum in Rome; Moby Dick while on Martha's Vineyard. The right book can add a lot of meaning and texture to an experience. The Submission has mostly succeeded at fulfilling that need for me as we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

Amy Waldman, a former New York Times reporter, has written a book that is worth considering in our post-9/11 world. The novel opens in the aftermath of an unspecified Islamic-fascist terrorist attack. A committee has been created to consider submissions in an open, blind process for a memorial for the victims of the attack. The committee is chaired by a stately former bank chairman and includes artists, architects, political representatives and a widow who represents the victims' families. As the novel opens, the committee has completed its selection process and chosen a geometric, memorial garden. When the chairman opens the envelope, to the committee's shock, it realizes that the winning selections was submitted by a Muslim architect, Mohamed Kahn. Kahn is an American born, non-religious Muslim. Kahn and his submission become a wrenching political and emotional flash point for the committee, the victims' families, the politicians and the nation. The characters must decide whether to allow the result of a democratic process stand, whether it is appropriate to allow a co-religionist of the terrorists to design the memorial and whether tolerance should trump fear. Making matters worse, Kahn will not denounce the terrorists (I'm an American like you; why should I have to denounce them), Kahn refuses to pander to the fears and concerns of the committee, the politicians and the victims' families. Further, his design appears to be inspired by Islamic victory gardens. The story, which Waldman began prior to the Ground Zero mosque controversy, challenges the characters and readers to consider how our values have changed as a result of the attack.

As a novel, The Submission was very good, fast reading, relevant and well constructed. Kahn's motivations for submitting the garden could have been explored more. While the dialogue was believable, a few of the characters could have been developed a bit better. Given the timing of the release of this novel and the writer's background (NYT), the novel has received a fair amount of attention, perhaps a bit more than it deserved on its merits alone.

The Submission, Amy Waldman's debut novel, is a straight forward look at the raw emotion and political scheming generated by the mass murder that rocked this country on September 11, 2001. The novel, set two years after that event, begins just as a jury is to vote on the design of a national memorial for the victims of the terrorist attack that claimed their lives. Each of the designs has its backers, and the vote is a close one, but the jury unites behind its choice until the winner of the "blind vote" turns out to be an architect by the name of Mohammed Kahn.

Outrage, skepticism, and confusion quickly surface even within this jury composed of artists, prominent business people, a relative of one of the victims, and several politically influential citizens. It helps little that Mohammed Kahn prefers to be called "Mo" or that he drifted away from his religion years earlier - his motivation for entering the contest and the influences on his winning design are going to be questioned. Members of the jury hope to find a solution before the winner's identity becomes public, but when Kahn's name is leaked to the press, public outrage at the jury's choice is immediate and loud.

The plot of The Submission is more concerned with how individuals respond to, and are impacted by, a situation like this one than with what the jury will ultimately decide to do about their Muslim winner. Waldman tells the story primarily through the eyes of two main characters: Mohammed Kahn and Claire Burwell, a 9/11 widow with two small children to raise. Burwell, who was the chief advocate for Kahn's winning design before the jury members knew his identity, is initially his strongest and most vocal defender. But when Kahn stubbornly refuses to answer the frank questions asked by the jury, she begins to doubt his avowed reason for having entered the competition.

Readers who have kept up with recent controversies such as the building of a "World Trade Center Mosque" will not be much surprised by what Waldman has to say in The Submission. They will have already heard from people in the real world like Kahn, Burwell, and Waldman's cast of less developed characters that includes a ruthless newspaper reporter, wild-eyed talk show hosts, apologists who hold America responsible for the 9/11 slaughter of its citizens, and politicians milking America's new found patriotism for personal gain. Importantly, however, the book tells a good story that makes it easy for its readers to consider points of view they may otherwise have never taken into account.

My one disappointment with The Submission involves its rather contrived (and convenient) ending. Because I do not want to spoil that ending for others, I will only say that, for me, the story's resolution detracts from its realistic tone and lessens its emotional impact. That said, I do recommend The Submission - particularly for discussion by book clubs- because it requires its readers to think for themselves a little.

Two years after the devastating events of September 11th, a nation still grieves. In an attempt to offer some surcease of sorrow to the country, and to those who lost loved ones on that terrible day, a memorial has been proposed, and a blind competition held to pick the best design for the memorial. Now the jury who will make the final recommendation is down to two names, but when they choose, and realize that the winning architect is a Muslim, can they uphold this choice, or will it destroy not only them, but the memorial, and divide a grieving nation?

Among the members of the jury is Claire Burwell, the sole representative of the families. She lost her husband, her two children their father. It is she who fought for the Garden design, unknowing of its origins, as being most soothing and healing to the families, as well as to the nation. Opposing her is Ariana Montagu, leaving the head of the jury, Paul Rubin, to play peacemaker and voice of reason. The design that Ariana promotes is far more bleaker than the simple, lovely garden. When Claire's eloquence prevails, the discovery is made that the designer, Mohammad Khan, is a Muslim. Now what are they to do?

The Submission deals with some very important issues, questions that dig deep into the psyche of a nation. Mohammad, or Mo, as he prefers to be known, is an American, with little interest in or ties to his religion. But he resents that he is being pegged because of the fact that he was born a Muslim. When Claire presses him for answers, he refuses to give them on the grounds that the questions should not have been asked, nor would they be asked of anyone else. In that respect, The Submission reminds me of The Contender, in which a woman senator is being investigated because she has been proposed as the next Vice President of the United States. Some very race photos alleging to be of this woman, taken during her college years, have surfaced, causing quite the scandal. But when asked to confirm or deny that these photos are of her, she says she will not answer, on the grounds that were she a man, no one would have even asked the question.

Is the design suspect because proposed by a Muslim? Does that change what the design is, what it says? This was the purpose of the blind competition, was it not? To prevent the personality of the entrant to interfere with the choice of the design, as being two separate entities, and not relevant one to the other. Where does art begin and politics end? Is this a beautiful American garden? Or was it designed with Islam in mind?

The Submission is filled with memorable characters on both sides, not the least of which is Asma, whose husband died also on that terrible day. The difference in her situation and Claire's is that Asma and her husband are from Bangladesh, and he was an illegal immigrant.

Many profound questions are explored in this tale. It is Amy Waldman's first novel, and quite the debut. The only criticism I can make, and this is just my own opinion, is that I get no real feeling for the story, by which I mean it's told in an almost cold, distant manner. Maybe that's what she intended. Maybe that's a means of keeping an objective perspective. I'm not saying she needed to take sides, or anything of that nature. But I would have liked to have seen more warmth in the people as people.

Regardless, it's well done, and a provocative look at the nature of America and Americans. A real eye-opener. I'd like to see what else Ms. Waldman can do.

What a beautifully written and complex story. Waldman's story focuses on two years after 9/11 when a committee of artists and their related community are gathered to determine which of a number of anonymous submissions will be accepted as the memorial for 9/11. Claire, the wife of one of the men who died in 9/11, has pushed for a garden design over the objections of others on the committee and has gotten her wish. When they open the materials with the submission, they learn that the designer is a Muslim American architect, Mohammad Khan.

The remainder of the novel focuses on the controversy over the design after the choice is leaked to the press. And for 250 pages we see Claire, Mohammad and a cast of other characters related to the submission attempt to come to some kind of resolution. Waldman includes Debbie, a rabid anti-Muslim woman, Bitman, the female governor of NY, Paul, the committee chairman, Sean, the brother of a fire fighter killed in the bombing, Asma, an illegal Bengali immigrant whose husband was a janitor at the twin towers, and a myriad array of other less significant but intriguing characters to build her tension.

What makes the novel work is a combination of well written, engaging text, fully developed multi-dimensional characters and the weaving of a complex web of pros and cons that throws water on any easy or simplistic answer to the question: should a Muslim American designer be allowed to create the memorial to 9/11 and, if so, under what conditions? Waldman fully examines the pros and cons from so many perspectives that by the end of the novel, it's very difficult to know what to think. The ending does not resolve this conflict but realistically leaves the reader with the notion that there is no right answer.

An engaging, provocative novel that makes the reader ask one basic question: "Do We, as Americans, really believe what we say we believe?"

Do we really believe in Freedom of Religion? Or is it only for those who think and believe like we do?

Do we really believe in hard work the American Dream? Or does it apply only those who look like us, think like and act like us?

Do we really believe in fair play and fair competition? Or does that apply only to those who look like us, those who think like us, those worship like us.

What if, for example, a Muslim submitted and won the design for a memorial at the World Trade Center site, Ground Zero (or Ground Hero, as Mayor Bloomberg now calls it)? A Muslim designing a memorial at Ground Zero? How do you feel about that, and how do those feelings compare to what you profess to believe about yourself and our country's values?

That is the premise of this book, and all readers, each and every one, will find themselves in this novel, portrayed sometimes favorably, sometimes unfavorably. This book is about who we are compared to who we say we are, as individuals, as a people and as a nation. Do we live up to our ideas of freedom and democracy? Why or Why Not? Why sometimes and not others?

As Americans, Muslim and non-Muslim, try to find a way to live together peacefully and in harmony this book addresses and delves into all of the issues, legal and emotional, that we face--as individuals and as a people.

Provocative. Quite provocative.

Amy Waldman scores high marks for this insightful story into a design contest for a Twin Towers memorial garden that's won by an American Muslim. The results of the competition polarize the country and create an explosive controversy. At the center of it is Mohammad Khan, the talented but enigmatic winner, and Claire Burwell, a beautiful and wealthy widow who lost her husband in the attacks and is now a judge in the competition. It was hard for me to feel real empathy for either of them, and this was the problem for me with this novel - while well-written, it seemed somehow dispassionate, and distant from its own story. There was only one character (out of a large cast) I really could like or care about. Nonetheless, the book has some fine moments and is compulsively readable.

What if...? stories can offer creative opportunities and also pitfalls for an author intent on reimagining aspects of real-life events in fictional form. Amy Waldman has taken up the challenge with her debut novel "The Submission". The author envisions that - a few years after the tragic events - in an anonymous competition for the Memorial design for the 9/11 victims, the jury chooses a design that had been submitted by a Muslim American architect, Mohammad Khan. As soon as the news of the jury choice leaks to the press an emotional storm is unleashed in the public - passionate and confrontational; a storm that is exposing complex relationships between religions, ethnicities and social strata. The narrative follows the ensuing debates and conflicts, both external and internal to the central characters, in great detail, taking pains to depict a range of different perspectives: from the jury members' dilemmas to the debates among Muslim groups themselves.

At the centre of the story are several representative characters and the narrative moves from one to another's ongoing story: the architect Mo, son of Indian immigrants born in the US; the jury president, Paul, trying to find acceptable compromise to please all sides; Claire, the victims' families' representative on the jury, Sean, almost Claire's alter-ego who wasn't chosen for the jury, and, last but not least, Asma, widow of an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh. While their actions and reflections carry the story forward, they are surrounded by various vocal individuals and interest groups interested in the evolving storm. Waldman, while conveying the inner conflicts of her characters convincingly, keeps nonetheless a certain intellectual distance and emotional reserve that can also easily be transferred to the reader.

The real-life processes and debates around the Memorial design in the aftermath of 9/11 and the suggested uses of the empty space of the Twin Towers will be familiar to most readers of Waldman's book. How much the author can add to these or bring to the fore additional layers of complexities will be up to the individual reader to decide. Personally, I could relate to the novel at the issue-based level more than at an emotional one. I found Claire's character less convincing than it might have been. Asma, the young Bangladeshi woman, on the other hand appeared to me to be one of the most authentic individuals in the novel. Finally, Mo's evolving behaviour and related explanations may be disappointing to some readers: his early self-definition "I am an architect and an American. I also happen to be a Muslim..." and his idea that his design "would provide a way for the families, the nation to mourn and to remember all that was lost on that day, and also to heal..." stands as a continuous challenge throughout the novel. [Friederike Knabe]

In trying to assign a number of stars to this book, I was in a quandary. If it was on content, I would probably give it no more than a 3; an engaging quick read, on the surface, it seems to simply be a replay of some old themes surrounding 9/11. However, after completing the book and thinking about many of the issues raised, I decided to give it 4. On every page I turned, I saw the anger, bigotry, jealousy, hubris, and need to find someone to blame, above all else, hiding under the themes of the memorial's possible more noble, original intent, to rebuild, remember, honor the dead, and demonstrate the need for nationalism, one America, unity, healing, humility, peace. The examination of those themes impressed me. If it encouraged a more thoughtful approach to 9/11 and its aftermath, it became more worthy in my eyes. It is not quite about 9/11, but is more about how people approached the proper way to memorialize it.

The Memorial was designed to be selected in an anonymous contest to create the ideal atmosphere of fairness and equality; it was a liberal idea, to be the most democratic. In the end it makes a mockery of the words, since fairness is interpreted, weighted heavily, on the basis of who is being judged. When the winner is chosen, the controversy begins because he is a Muslim. The overriding disturbing factor is this: can a Muslim design the memorial for thousands murdered by Muslims, even if this particular one is neither a practicing Muslim nor a guilty one?

I was disappointed when the author, in a typical knee-jerk reaction, assumed the anger came from the right, glorifying liberals who were more open-minded. The book became a bit too political then, but, in the end, perhaps the ultimate criminal, the ultimate fiend, was possibly on the left, when an innocent voice was silenced by someone who thought they had the only right message. Like with the Occupiers of today, sometimes a message can be contaminated with irrationality, even though the masses may support it. I don't know the author's intent, but the book made me think about the many misguided, self-righteous people who rally round a message without understanding its ultimate meaning or consequence.

I am certain that some will dislike this book, observing that it is unimaginative and really raises no new issues that have not been explored ad nauseum, but I found that what it did really well was the exploration of the emotions behind the characters' actions. The dialogue made the reader think about the why it happened, not just that it did happen. It did a good job analyzing motives, inner feelings, behavior and end results. What provoked each character to react as he did in each situation? Was it altruism, nationalism, patriotism, egotism, self promotion, professional growth, greed? Were any of the motives pure? Were any of the players ultimately guilt free, with regard to the novel's conclusion? Is it possible for anyone to be free from outside influences? Is it right for the media to incite the public just for readership when it serves no purpose except to shut down dialogue and perhaps incite fury? Do we need an enemy, even a contrived target, in order to find a solution?
The book made me think about the philosophy of life that motivates each of us and how we each think we are right in a given situation? Are we victims of the press, of our own prejudices, secret and overt. What drives us all? Are we all submitting to our hidden agendas in some way? Would it be better if we always had a cooling-off period before we reacted so our response would be thoughtful not charged or agitated?

The title is a double entendre, which is more apparent as the book evolves. At first it is about the main character who submits a design to memorialize the victims of 9/11, on the site of the original buildings. Is his submission worthy? It also becomes an investigation into the act of submitting, submitting to a religion, submitting to the contest results, submitting to fate, submitting to one's G-d, one's spouse, one's government, to any and all outside pressure. We all engage in the act of submission. When is it acceptable, respectable?
There is one scene which is poignant and revealing, which sums up the act of submission in its varied costumes. A character shows up with his cohorts at the home of the representative of the families on the 9/11 Memorial Committee. There he finds a small heap of stones. He picks them up as he contemplates breaking her windows because he is angry and does not agree with her position about the memorial. In attempting to get his way, to have his wishes pleased, he unwittingly destroys the cairn built as a memorial by her children, to their father. Submitting to his baser instincts, he destroys one memorial in favor of another, which points out the true, tragic failure of the project and the wrongheadedness of the misguided. Vengeance is never the right answer.

MAJOR SPOILERS:

This novel was published in 2011. Its title referred to the architect Mo's proposal for the garden, the submission to God felt by devout Muslims (or any believer), and the fear of Mo's opponents that the garden represented U.S. submission to Islam. I enjoyed reading the book very much.

***
Compelling: Once the story and major characters had been set up, one wanted to see how things would end -- whether the garden would prevail -- and whether the main characters would manage to overcome their divisions to find common ground. Developments throughout were powered by their resentments (class, sexual, moral), their doubts, fears, guilts and hatreds. Demagogues, gutter journalists and narrow-minded politicians preyed on these vulnerabilities, brought out the worst in people and worked ultimately to keep them apart. For this reader, the dilemmas, emotions and ideals, together with the events people were commemorating, had emotional power.

***
Humane: While not the greatest characters ever written, all the major actors were understandable (Mo, Claire, Paul, Sean, Asma), and all their dilemmas were sympathetic. Each had strengths and weaknesses, one wished the best for all of them and wanted them all to somehow succeed. For me, this was one of the author's main achievements, guided by her insight that each of their stories had more than one side.

The characters were often paired with each other -- Mo and Paul, Clair and Mo, Sean and a devout Muslim student -- and it sometimes seemed that if they could just stay in the room long enough and keep talking to each other, they could manage to move beyond their fears and find some common ground.

This vision of a common humanity, properly honored, was referred to briefly by Asma at the public hearing. It was given to her to express an American ideal.

***
Intelligent: For me, the book was structured with great skill, and succeeded in capturing elements of contemporary U.S. life and human behavior that felt very real. The various ethnicities, at varying stages of social integration. The distinct voices across the media spectrum (NY Post, WSJ, Weekly Standard, NY Times, New Yorker), which the author must surely have enjoyed mimicking. The tribalizing of society, the polarization of debate on contentious issues. Patriotism manipulated to grotesque ends, amid the proliferation of committees, symbolic gestures, slogans, T-shirts and pins. The objectification of individuals into group members, and the vulnerability of people who refused membership in a group.

The book showed how people's need to belong to something larger than themselves, to form and find comfort in groups, was fundamental. And those who trampled on the tenets of their in-group, causing problems for it or calling undue attention to themselves in any way risked severe consequences, whether it was the hostility Claire faced from her constituency, Asma's expulsion from the U.S., Paul's exclusion from the city's elite or the threat of Sean's expulsion from his family. Mo's insistence on his individuality above all else led to problems with everyone -- the victims, his partner, the jury and his support group. Eventually, he drew condemnation by Muslim clerics around the world.

Yet the groups competing with each other often behaved quite similarly. For example, the author showed both the elite jury and the Muslim association covering a spectrum of opinion and resolving problems through discussion and voting.

The themes of a garden and of commemoration were rich. By the book's end, one couldn't help thinking of Eden -- a paradise corrupted by human frailty, a paradise from which mankind had been expelled and sought to return. As suggested by a character, America itself might be considered a garden in which diverse ethnicities had been planted and grown together. And so many people in this book were driven by the desire to commemorate the dead, whether through a garden, a cairn, or a ruler's tomb in Kabul.

The book showed the "kernel of truth" in the observation made by the talk-show host of Mo (p. 189). Despite Mo's comments at the public hearing, his garden turned out to have been inspired in large part by a very personal experience in Afghanistan, something he told no one. His planting of this personal vision in the garden for NYC was mirrored at the end by a character's commemorative act in a garden built in Asia.

The flash-forward at the conclusion provided closure, showing how the characters had come to terms with missed opportunities. There was a sense of melancholy but also hope, for them and for the country. The book ended in a compelling way, with a vision of a devout man in prayer, forgetting the self -- something none of the main characters managed to do -- Mo's vision of an earthly paradise, and the commemoration of a name. It was refreshing to see religious themes introduced into contemporary life in these ways.

Excerpts:

"You couldn't call yourself an American if you hadn't, in solidarity, watched your fellow Americans being pulverized, yet what kind of American did watching create?"

"The attack made everyone afraid of appearing unpatriotic, of questioning government, leaders. Fear has justified war, torture, secrecy, all kinds of violations of rights and liberties. Don't let it justify taking the memorial away from Khan."

"He had wanted to unite East and West, and he had -- against himself."

"You have mixed up these bad Muslims, these bad people, and Islam. Millions of people all over the world have done good things because Islam tells them to . . . . I think a garden is right . . . because that is what America is -- all the people Muslim and non-Muslim, who have come and grown together."

"Any reference to Mohammad Khan's religious background or heritage is a disgrace, an insult to what this country is. Our daughter would have wanted better from us. And if this garden contains Islamic elements - well, we should [italics] be looking for ways to unite our cultures."

"It's almost like we fight over what we can't settle in real life through these symbols. They're our nation's afterlife."

"I just meant there are two sides to everything, including this. Probably more than two sides."

This book is a must-read...it is written with a sure hand and a deft touch...it really makes you think and question what your feelings would be if what happens in the book happened in real life. the characters are very interesting and the story moves along at a fast pace. the ending is one of the most wonderful endings of any book i've read lately...sentimental a bit, but touching and a few things go full circle which i always love in a book...it definitely echoes 'bonfire of the vanities' but is not as long-winded and it's a story for this time in our lives, not the go-go 80s...READ THIS BOOK!

Ten years have gone by since the Twin Towers came down on 9/11, and through those years, a wide array of talented fiction writers have attempted to make sense of that pivotal experience: Lynn Sharon Schwartz, John Updike, Jonathan Safron Foer, Claire Messud, to name just a few.

The brilliance of Amy Waldman's book is that she does not try to apply logic to why 9/11 occurred, nor does she attempt to recreate the complex and traumatic emotions that most Americans felt that day. Instead, she explores something broader: the fallout of a country confused, divided, and sick with fear, clamoring to make sense of the insensible.

The book begins with an ambiguous title: The Submission. On a concrete level, the submission refers to anonymous submissions by architects - in the best democratic tradition - who vie for the right to build an enduring memorial to Ground Zero. But read those words again, and the meaning is far deeper. Is Waldman referring to the submission of Muslims to Qur'an law, forcing them into outsider positions? Or is she writing of the submission of too many Americans to their deepest fears?

A little of all three interpretations exist, but it becomes increasingly evident that it is the latter that Amy Waldman is most interested in. The skeleton of the story is this: the winner of the submission is an American Muslim, Mohammad Khan, whose true religion is his vaulting ambition. (At a later point, Mo's lover will say to him, "Now I see that it was about you: your design, your reputation, your place in history.") Raised in the United States since birth, Mo (as he is universally called) has barely set foot in a mosque his entire life. His design - a garden - is comforting and soothing, particularly to the sole member of the selection jury who is also the widow of a 9/11 victim.

Once Mo's identity is leaked at the winner, the fervor begins. He is called, among other things, "decadent, abstinent, deviant, violent, insolent, abhorrent, aberrant, and typical." Amy Waldman, the former bureau chief of the New York Times, knows this territory intimately: the ambitious reporter who will do anything for a scoop (including defecting to the New York Post, which traffics in sensationalism), the equally ambitious governor who strives for reelection while inflaming public sentiment, the radio talk show host who plays into his audience's prejudices. Before too long, the garden is being depicted as an "Islamic victory garden", Mo is being called by his full name, and his loyalty to the U.S. is being questioned on all fronts.

Amy Waldman characters are nearly always fully realized: whether she's writing about Mo, Claire - the wealthy widow and key juror on the selection committee - or a seemingly bit player who is propelled to center stage, the Bangladeshi widow Asma, whose husband, an illegal immigrant, worked as a janitor and was killed in the attack.

Although the author's point of view is not hard to discern, to her credit, she reveals all sides and that is never clearer than during the scene when the public weighs in about the design. The question becomes: "What history do you want to write with this memorial?" Every side is represented, from the professor of Middle Eastern studies who states, "...Achieving that paradise through martyrdom - murder suicide - has become the obsession of Islamic extremists, the ultimate submission to God: to the author on Islamic gardens who asks, "Since when did we become so afraid of learning from other cultures?"

The pretentious artistic debates...the cynical political showboating...the tactical moves of special-interest groups...the media that fuels rumors rather than reports news - all are depicted here. My 5-star rating does not imply this is a literary masterpiece; it is, however, a well-written, thought-provoking, and nuanced book that will appeal to many different kinds of readers. With all the posturing, the truth is often found in just letting go. Or, as Mo eventually discovers, "He had forgotten himself, and this was the truest submission."

Amy Waldman's "The Submission" is set two years after 9/11. The committee tasked with selecting a memorial design has chosen, and when the designer is revealed he is a Muslim. The committee then grapples with what to do, as the city becomes embroiled in a controversy about whether or not a Muslim should be "allowed" to design the Memorial. The novel examines our prejudices and the dark underside of American society.

I had a hard time getting into and appreciating this novel, mainly because it's central theme was so close to the negativity and conflict that surrounds us in America on an everday basis. I believe the novel was believable and well written, it just wasn't a topic that I felt a good connection with. I also felt like most of the characters were unlikable and flat, which made it hard for me to empathize with them. Perhaps I'm just not a good reader for a ripped from the headlines type novel since I pay so much attention to current affairs.

Amy Waldman's the Submission is not just a modern American novel, but a demanding piece of fiction that commands a decision from our conscience in the next few hundred pages or so. Waldman pulls in readers in headfirst into an intense jury meeting that is about to get much more intense. The New Yorkers comprised of artists, the mayor, a widow, and many others are deciding between two finalists of the 9/11 memorial anonymous competition: "the Void" versus "the Garden," absence of life versus life, respectively. Claire Burwell, the well-to-do widow, wins over the jury for the Garden by highlighting its sense of healing a place where people can "stumble upon joy" (Waldman, 5). Claire's emotional appeal works well enough until the anonymous submission reunites with its creator's name: Mohammed Khan. Much more heated debate ensues as the central question of the book emerges: should the committee support the creation of Khan's design in full respect towards his rights as an American and as the winner of the competition, or revoke the decision and look at other options for the memorial in fear of anti-Muslim backlash and bitter sentiments from "the families"- those whose relatives died in the attacks.
Waldman craftily creates a centralized plot but with many offshoots relating to the wide array of voices in this piece of fiction and the influence of the media, characterized by the obnoxious, dogged reporter for the New York Post, Alyssa Spier. Spier epitomizes all that is ugly about media: tabloids of untruths, invaded privacy, and unstoppable. As Michiko Kakutani, a New York Times book critic, puts it, "...she charts how one decision or choice can turn into a billiard ball, ricocheting at unexpected angles and creating chain reactions- especially when its been put in play in a tinderbox of ethnic, religious and regional politics, and its impact has been magnified and distorted by the echo chamber of 24/7 news media coverage" (Kakutani, 2). Spier gets hold of the confidential information regarding the name of the chosen submission and things really pick up. Spier's obtrusive and apathetic portrayal seems to reveal Waldman's personal opinions in regard to the role of media and its responsibilities. However negative the light, the media's impact in the Submission could almost be considered as a large as a main character; it facilitates almost all connection from one character to another somehow and mimics the possible distortions that could result from the media in an incident as such.
Regarding characters, there are main characters; it would be difficult to loosely define these personalities as protagonists or antagonists because each one is so complex that to some, one might be the victim, while to another, the threat. So, there are definite lines drawn in this book and creation of ingroups and outgroups. In doing research, I found some journals concerning subliminal racism and prejudice. Humans are evolutionary group animals, perhaps originating from the times when the best teams won battles out on the field as well as in the gene pool: "...group life is a quintessential human adaptation" (Culotta, 827). Culotta also talks about the "us" against "them" situations, which can be found in all areas of life because it was our best bet for survival long ago. "If groups compete for territory or resources, favoring the ingroup necessarily means beating the outgroup and can escalate into hostility...outgroup hate and ingroup love may have spurred each other" (Culotta, 826). Ingroup and outgroup identification happens almost immediately in a situation from nonverbal language as people asses and then identify or do not identify with others by even just a facial expression or subtle body language (Racial Bias, 1641). There are two groups in this book: Khan proponents and Khan opponents. Perhaps it was Waldman's intent, but I felt a sudden connection to Claire Burwell and those who support Mohammad Khan's design because of his rights as an American ad purpose to serve the country be creating a moving piece of art dedicated to many whom themselves and/or their families and friends suffered through hard times following the 9/11 attacks. Nevertheless, there were moments where I saw reasoning behind others' opposing opinions.
Interactions between the two groups propel the plot forward, making the Submission full of debate, contradiction, and tests of characters reactions on behalf of either fear or morality. In addition, Waldman links small-impact decisions with large-impact decisions, individual decisions and group decisions, public decisions and private decisions, and so on. She also highlights empathy and social tolerance. For example, as the fight for Khan's design drags on, Claire Burwell loses faith in the design, in America, and in her decision-making skills. She and Sean Gallagher, a high school dropout handyman who lost his angelic brother and mentor Patrick to the attacks, come into conflict at a hearing for the public to voice their opinions on "the Garden." Most of the comments are about Khan himself, though, and what he represents- Islam- which to some families is offensive.

"I do see their pain. That's what makes this so hard." The edges of [Claire's] mouth quivered. The question mark in her face, his dubious creative stroke for the rally, hadn't been wrong... "You don't know what you want," [Sean] said, halting in front of her, peeved by the difference in their height. "You know what you're supposed to want, but not what you really want. Step aside, Claire. Let people who know their own minds fight this out." "No, people like me, who can see both sides are needed It's called empathy." Her tone had turned patronizing, superior. "Cowardice is what it's called. You can see all the sides you want, but you can only be on one. One! You have to choose, Claire." (Waldman, 234).

Disregarding the two characters' opinions on the issue, even their approaches differ. This is one of the many ways that Waldman pulls and pries at readers' consciences, forcing them to comb through themselves and come to terms with who they really are and what they believe. Another issue woven into this novel is illegal immigration tied in with Asma, a single mother who lost her husband in the attacks but does not receive the same treatment as other "families" because she is an undocumented immigrant from Bangladesh. Her trials and tribulations bring forth a whole other side to the questions brought up by this book, especially that of where the line is between America and America. By this I mean the country with rights legally given and opportunities available, in comparison with the social and political reality that taints theses rights and opportunities, and the people to whom these belong, and if we should focus our attention on the ideal or face the reality with a stiff upper lip.
In conclusion, Amy Waldman channels hype and hidden stirrings in each American about his or her country and fellow Americans, and him- or herself. She forces questions of morality upon readers by giving them several realistic characters from all walks of life to identify with and face the questions raised in the Submission together. While I felt that Mohammad Khan was too estranged from readers and isolated, Waldman well-represented his public presence in this way, bringing forth more questions about the right to privacy and to the public, and so on. Besides this one disappointment, I felt that the Submission was a dynamic satisfying read because it challenged me as a person, constantly pressing me to put in my verdict for the jury.

Amy Waldman's debut novel, The Submission, tackles a sensitive subject with skill. The plot involves the selection of a design for a 9/11 memorial in New York. The judges select a garden motif from a vast selection of blind submissions. When it turns out that the architect is Muslim, the wonderfully crafted characters react in ways that address trust, vulnerability, and the multiple levels and meanings of "submission." Mo Khan, the architect, reacts with a coldness and rigidity that adds to strength of the novel. Waldman spares no one as the story proceeds, and she allows multiple perspectives to develop simultaneously. Readers can identify with any number of characters. Any reader who likes fine writing, complex characters and a satisfying plot is likely to enjoy this novel.

Rating: Four-star (Highly Recommended)

The book explores ethnic stereotyping, prejudices, racism, misunderstandings of religion and intentions, interpretations, hysteria, fanatics, public opinion, and slanted snarky journalism all based on the design of a memorial at the 9/11 attack on World Trade Center site. I would have liked to have seen more character development or growth, but perhaps the author's intention was to leave them stunted, similar to and unresolved, like many views and discussions around themes in the book for ours and many countries.

A real good read. If you're a Tom Wolfe fan like I am, this book will remind you of his all-consuming intellectual style. Characters across the NYC spectrum weighing in on the winning architectural design of a Ground Zero 9/11 memorial contest. Drum roll please... And the winner is "Mohammed Khan" whoa!!!

A brilliant plotline is not ruined by this gifted author. The drama builds nicely throughout. I think the ending was ok, not what I was expecting, but ok. I was wishing the story would unveil more than it finally did. I love the way this author writes her characters. They're stripped down and exposed with all their brilliance and flaws for the reader to see.

Eagerly awaiting Amy Waldman's next submission to the literary world. Definitely recommend!

In reading this fictionalized re-imagining of a pivotal event in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack on New York City, you'd feel like a mirror is being put in front of you and you're being asked to look at yourself in this mirror before you answer the following questions: Who are you really? What do you stand for, and have you tried to live up to what you stand for? Who do you care about, and who cares about you? When you reflect on these questions, you may find yourself confronted with ironies, contradictions, and ambivalences, just like many of the characters portrayed in this novel.

The fictionalized process for selecting the winning design for a memorial to the fallen victims of the terrorist attack on New York City was supposed to have been a straightforward process reflecting the best of American democratic ideals -- instead of limiting the competition to invited and famous artists or architects, which supposedly would have smacked of elitism, the competition was opened to anyone who passes the legal requirements, and the winning entry would be selected without prior knowledge of any submitter's identity so that the selection can be made based on merit. When the winning designer was revealed to have been an American-born Muslim by the name of Mohammad Khan, however, suddenly what was supposed to have been a straightforward process morphed into anything but.

Author Amy Waldman captures the ensuing anger, heartbreaks, ambivalence, frenzied divisiveness, and moral / ethical / humanitarian debates very well. Just as the debating parties form a diverse mosaic, the issues that need to be considered are varied and complex as well, including: Did Mohammad Khan win fair and square and therefore should be declared the winner? Should he be asked to alter his design to address objections and concerns raised by others? Are those objections and concerns legitimate and reasonable? Is "winning" the only thing that's important to Mohammad Khan? What did he hope to get out of winning -- fame and fortune for himself, or something more abstract that represents something greater than him? Should he insist on getting declared the winner, or could he achieve more by withdrawing (e.g., facilitating the "healing")? What are the "principles" being fought here? Do the families of the fallen victims not deserve the sensitivity they're asking for? Is there anyway there could be a "compromise" and what would that "compromise" consist of?

Another thing that I thought the author did very well was how she captured the hypocritical, self-serving, or malfeasant behaviors of some of the characters (e.g., the journalist who had no qualms manipulating unsuspecting interviewees into giving her juicy quotes that she can use to serve up inflammatory headlines, the governor seeking to move up the political food chain by exploiting people's fears, etc.).

For me, the novel's "extended" ending had disturbing and heartbreaking, somewhat inevitable, but also hopeful elements. Through characters who seemed to have had a change of heart, and some in the younger generation (i.e., children of some of the characters) growing up with a keen interest in gaining an understanding of what really happened and how different people were impacted during and following those pivotal years, the author offers the possibility that people don't always hold on to their beliefs rigidly; that people can and do change their thinking, and as long as there is interest in understanding the past, there is hope for the future.

I thought that, overall, the writing was very strong. For me, however, the somewhat inevitable ending took away a little bit of the novel's potency. The inability to escape a "pre-destined fate" can be saddening, but thankfully, the author did offer a glimmer of hope.

This was one of the best novels that I've read in a long time. I can't believe it wasn't selected for the Bellwether Prize because if this book isn't socially conscious, I don't know one that is. It is about a jury making a blind selection for the 9/11 memorial to go in place of the Twin Towers and what happens when their selection was submitted by an American Muslim. The story covers every aspect you could possibly imagine coming up in this situation and almost every viewpoint, including 2 women who lost their husbands that day. One of the wives was an undocumented immigrant and a Muslim whose husband was a janitor working in the Towers that fateful day. I found her story the most effectual, but all of the characters and their points of view are well, and fully developed; every perspective thoroughly examined. There have been many books that were influenced by 9/11, and this one holds it's own as astory about what it does, and should, mean to pursue happiness in America.

The story of the selection and un-selection of a (fictional) memorial to the 9/11 victims in NYC is told from the viewpoint of multiple participants in the process, including a member of the committee and bereaved family member of the victim, the designer of the memorial, the head of the committee, an unemployed family member of a different victim who makes a career out of lobbying for victims' families, a reporter on the make who tries to capitalize via her coverage of the events, and an illegal immigrant whose husband was killing in the bombing. The plot engine is the revelation that the designer of the memorial is a Muslim -- a fact to which no participant can be neutral, but which makes any satisfactory resolution of the decision impossible.

I was suspicious of the book just because I thought there would be no plot resolution that was not either utterly predictable or independent of a political valence. At the beginning I also got frustrated just because the main protagonist, the woman on the committee whose husband was killed in the bombing, was so flat and uninteresting. These problems tended to make me think that the author was using the story didactically, and unfortunately that impression didn't wane in the first third of the book, in which a number of the plot developments seem both inevitable and depressing. Later I realized that that seemed to be the point of the novel: that the process of memorialization is always already contested in ways that make its resolution unsatisfactory. On the whole I liked the way the book created this mood, although the author broke from her neutrality in the end by putting the best speech ever in the mouth of the widowed illegal immigrant. It was nice that the author didn't beat us over the head with the parallel between "submission" in the sense of "Islam" and the architect's submission to the contest, but on the other hand, this theme could have been drawn out more explicitly.

A nation's tragedy brings out the best and the worst in its citizens. Amy Waldman places her story at the center of America's tragedy, two years after the devastation. A contest for a 9/11 memorial where the World Trade Center once stood brings to a boil all the simmering hurt and mistrust and fear about the future. What is it that causes this firestorm of media distortion and political posturing? What revelation leads to threats and accusations and even violence? Just a name. The name of the contest winner.

"Mo" is as American as can be. He's an architect, born and raised in Virginia. His immigrant parents proudly gave him the name of a beloved prophet. Never would they have imagined that a few decades later that name would become like poison to many Americans. "Mo" is Mohammad Khan. A Muslim name. Suddenly his design, "The Garden," becomes suspect, and the selection committee backpedals on its decision.

This story felt so real that it sometimes made my heart ache for my country, my world, my species. How easily we let ourselves be distracted, led away from the harmony we say we want. When the media and special interest groups push our buttons, they can make us forget why we've come together and what we hoped to accomplish. The voices of reason and reconciliation are often the most gentle and the hardest to hear amid the din of controversy.

It's challenging to give a plausible ending to a novel with real-life parallels. This book poses more questions than it answers, which is as it should be. Given the complexity of the issues, I think Waldman found a strong and believable finish. Our hope for the younger generations is powerful. Those who are too young to remember September 11, 2001 and its aftermath may be our best chance for a balanced perspective and, ultimately, for healing.

Even a quick glance at the NYT bestseller lists or the top ten television shows is cause for great discouragement, more of the same drab plots, dancing celebrities, government conspiracies, serial killer gore, and fictional accounts of non-fiction topics.

"The Submission" by Amy Waldman may give reason to hope for a better future, a place and time when authors start writing again for people who think, who want to think, who enjoy thinking. Ms. Waldman's writing is far superior to the average American author, and, of course, the story is brilliant, the plotting a work of architectural art. Her treatment of controversial topics is timely and important, as are the genuine insights she provides into the disturbing undercurrents in American life we all know exist but are unwilling to face.

I don't know if this important book not being listed on any of the bestseller lists is a crime or a warning, like a canary in the coal mine fallen to the bottom of the cage, encouraging writers to dumb down their offerings in an effort to make more money. I hope not. What I do know though is that intelligent people currently searching for a well written book, a novel that embraces the intellect of the reader instead insulting it, need look no further than "The Submission."

I liked how the story shifted between people with very different lives who were all impacted by the same tragedy. I thought the characters were realistic and their thoughts and actions seemed plausible. In a way, the book read like a fictionalized account of the survivor stories we've seen and read many times, so nothing about this story really felt 'new'. But, I just happened to be reading this book the week before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, so definitely a timely read.

I haven't reviewed a book in a while, but I felt this was worthy of a rave!
The best way (for me) to describe the style is to take any novel by Tom Wolfe, remove the cynicism, haughtiness and sarcasm, and about 500 pages, and you have "The Submission." It took me to all levels of emotional intensity through so many points of view. The ending, admittedly, was a bit too neat, and was my least favorite part. But all in all the book was excellent literature.

Amy Waldman's first novel offices a scenario reminiscent of last year's Park51 debate, but with a twist that makes the issues involved even more explosive. Two years after the September 11th attacks, the New York City committee appointed to select the World Trade Center memorial design has made its selection from among hundreds of anonymous submissions. When the envelope containing the designer's name is opened, he turns out to be a Muslim named Mohammad Khan. A media leak soon leads to a massive debate about Islam, grief, and art, with Khan and his design's greatest admirer, the 9/11 widow Claire Burwell, at its center.

The evolving sequence of events Waldman, a former reporter for The New York Times, describes is plausible enough, and full of details that have the ring of truth. But the issues raised and the views expressed are so familiar from the Park51 brouhaha and other aspects of the national discourse about Islam that it's difficult to escape the feeling one has read all this before. There are no real surprises in the way things play out, and the ignorant difficulty many characters have in thinking clearly about Islam, while true to life, makes for frustrating reading. Ultimately the novel fails to offer a new or surprising perspective on Islam, the September 11th attacks, or any other relevant topic, and feels more like a journalistic variation on real events than a story with guiding themes of its own.

Nor does it illuminate the personalities involved in its fictional debate enough to generate greater understanding of those involved in actual ones. Waldman demonstrates an awareness that politicans, journalists, activists, and commentators manipulate events like this not out of any great interest in outcomes, but to further their own ends. However, their psychological processes and moral justifications (if any) remain mysterious. Only a single such journalist is included as a point-of-view character, and she is insufficiently well-drawn, appearing much nastier and less intelligent than Waldman seems to intend. Other secondary protagonists are likewise flat, their lives and dreams alluded to but never developing depth because of the forward rush of the predictable narrative.

Claire Burswell and Mo Khan are fuller characters, though Waldman's staid minimalist prose rarely allows her grief or his frustration with being a media obsession to achieve the intensity of real emotion. The novel's epilogue, freed from the ceaseless news cycle, has a grace and a forcefulness much greater than anything that has gone before. The characters have finally, if abruptly, gained wisdom, recognized the futility of their earlier behaviors. If they'd been able to make that leap a bit more quickly, The Submission would have been a stronger, more insightful novel.

This is an exceptionally good book. It avoids easy answers and probes deeply into the messy business of how we all deal -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not -- with the interplay of emotion, reason, ambition, and principle. Amy Waldman invites us into the private worlds of people thrust onto a very public stage and refuses to let either her characters or her readers off the hook by accepting simple, comforting resolution or cliched responses. All of that is made all the more noteworthy because the book is a tremendous read with a captivating plot, engaging characters, and a sure sense of timing. Ms. Waldman repeatedly takes big risks as a writer here -- scenes that shouldn't work but do, encounters that should end predicably but don't, plot twists that should bring the whole novel crashing down, but instead take the story to even better and richer places. This is a book that deserves to be read and savored.

I chose this as my one "9-11" book this year and I'm not disappointed. The novel is a bit mechanical but there's an agile intelligence behind it, all the same. I found it utterly engrossing, though it doesn't reach--or even try to reach--the level of "serious literature." I've read a lot of 9/11 novels and The Submission is sociologically more astute than the others. Its depiction of the Rush Limbaugh figure, very brief, is terrific. The New York governor figure, however, hits a wrong note every time. The characters are all of interest but undeveloped. This form -- lots of characters and constant quick cuts among them -- is becoming a common form for contemporary novels. That said, there is a main character here--Mo Khan, the architect--but he isn't really the driving force of the novel, we are never inside him. Read this one for its sociological depiction of the hyped-up polarizing mess of modern public life in the U.S.

I had a connection to the WTC, watched it being built from my kitchen window, had clients on the upper floors, spent a lot of time on the observation deck, and was devastated to see it come down. The book told a story about the memorial that I wished was true - a beautiful garden would have been peaceful place to be to contemplate what had happened,, to mourn those who died there. The book was well written and kept me turning the pages to see what happened next. It also evoked angry feeling about the bigotry in our country.

Even a quick glance at the NYT bestseller lists or the top ten television shows is cause for great discouragement, more of the same drab plots, dancing celebrities, government conspiracies, serial killer gore, and fictional accounts of non-fiction topics.

"The Submission" by Amy Waldman may give reason to hope for a better future, a place and time when authors start writing again for people who think, who want to think, who enjoy thinking. Ms. Waldman's writing is far superior to the average American author, and, of course, the story is brilliant, the plotting a work of architectural art. Her treatment of controversial topics is timely and important, as are the genuine insights she provides into the disturbing undercurrents in American life we all know exist but are unwilling to face.

I don't know if this important book not being listed on any of the bestseller lists is a crime or a warning, like a canary in the coal mine fallen to the bottom of the cage, encouraging writers to dumb down their offerings in an effort to make more money. I hope not. What I do know though is that intelligent people currently searching for a well written book, a novel that embraces the intellect of the reader instead insulting it, need look no further than "The Submission."

I liked how the story shifted between people with very different lives who were all impacted by the same tragedy. I thought the characters were realistic and their thoughts and actions seemed plausible. In a way, the book read like a fictionalized account of the survivor stories we've seen and read many times, so nothing about this story really felt 'new'. But, I just happened to be reading this book the week before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, so definitely a timely read.

I haven't reviewed a book in a while, but I felt this was worthy of a rave!
The best way (for me) to describe the style is to take any novel by Tom Wolfe, remove the cynicism, haughtiness and sarcasm, and about 500 pages, and you have "The Submission." It took me to all levels of emotional intensity through so many points of view. The ending, admittedly, was a bit too neat, and was my least favorite part. But all in all the book was excellent literature.

Amy Waldman's first novel offices a scenario reminiscent of last year's Park51 debate, but with a twist that makes the issues involved even more explosive. Two years after the September 11th attacks, the New York City committee appointed to select the World Trade Center memorial design has made its selection from among hundreds of anonymous submissions. When the envelope containing the designer's name is opened, he turns out to be a Muslim named Mohammad Khan. A media leak soon leads to a massive debate about Islam, grief, and art, with Khan and his design's greatest admirer, the 9/11 widow Claire Burwell, at its center.

The evolving sequence of events Waldman, a former reporter for The New York Times, describes is plausible enough, and full of details that have the ring of truth. But the issues raised and the views expressed are so familiar from the Park51 brouhaha and other aspects of the national discourse about Islam that it's difficult to escape the feeling one has read all this before. There are no real surprises in the way things play out, and the ignorant difficulty many characters have in thinking clearly about Islam, while true to life, makes for frustrating reading. Ultimately the novel fails to offer a new or surprising perspective on Islam, the September 11th attacks, or any other relevant topic, and feels more like a journalistic variation on real events than a story with guiding themes of its own.

Nor does it illuminate the personalities involved in its fictional debate enough to generate greater understanding of those involved in actual ones. Waldman demonstrates an awareness that politicans, journalists, activists, and commentators manipulate events like this not out of any great interest in outcomes, but to further their own ends. However, their psychological processes and moral justifications (if any) remain mysterious. Only a single such journalist is included as a point-of-view character, and she is insufficiently well-drawn, appearing much nastier and less intelligent than Waldman seems to intend. Other secondary protagonists are likewise flat, their lives and dreams alluded to but never developing depth because of the forward rush of the predictable narrative.

Claire Burswell and Mo Khan are fuller characters, though Waldman's staid minimalist prose rarely allows her grief or his frustration with being a media obsession to achieve the intensity of real emotion. The novel's epilogue, freed from the ceaseless news cycle, has a grace and a forcefulness much greater than anything that has gone before. The characters have finally, if abruptly, gained wisdom, recognized the futility of their earlier behaviors. If they'd been able to make that leap a bit more quickly, The Submission would have been a stronger, more insightful novel.

This is an exceptionally good book. It avoids easy answers and probes deeply into the messy business of how we all deal -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not -- with the interplay of emotion, reason, ambition, and principle. Amy Waldman invites us into the private worlds of people thrust onto a very public stage and refuses to let either her characters or her readers off the hook by accepting simple, comforting resolution or cliched responses. All of that is made all the more noteworthy because the book is a tremendous read with a captivating plot, engaging characters, and a sure sense of timing. Ms. Waldman repeatedly takes big risks as a writer here -- scenes that shouldn't work but do, encounters that should end predicably but don't, plot twists that should bring the whole novel crashing down, but instead take the story to even better and richer places. This is a book that deserves to be read and savored.

I chose this as my one "9-11" book this year and I'm not disappointed. The novel is a bit mechanical but there's an agile intelligence behind it, all the same. I found it utterly engrossing, though it doesn't reach--or even try to reach--the level of "serious literature." I've read a lot of 9/11 novels and The Submission is sociologically more astute than the others. Its depiction of the Rush Limbaugh figure, very brief, is terrific. The New York governor figure, however, hits a wrong note every time. The characters are all of interest but undeveloped. This form -- lots of characters and constant quick cuts among them -- is becoming a common form for contemporary novels. That said, there is a main character here--Mo Khan, the architect--but he isn't really the driving force of the novel, we are never inside him. Read this one for its sociological depiction of the hyped-up polarizing mess of modern public life in the U.S.

I had a connection to the WTC, watched it being built from my kitchen window, had clients on the upper floors, spent a lot of time on the observation deck, and was devastated to see it come down. The book told a story about the memorial that I wished was true - a beautiful garden would have been peaceful place to be to contemplate what had happened,, to mourn those who died there. The book was well written and kept me turning the pages to see what happened next. It also evoked angry feeling about the bigotry in our country.

First of all, I have a very hard time with stories that re-manufacture an important event for the purposes of a fictional novel. As a result, I'm quite put off by the premise of The Submission, as I'd be much more interested in the true story about the 9/11 memorial. The word SACRED is used several times in the book -- how does this author not see the actual event as being somewhat sacred?

I picked the book up several times because I was enlisted to host the book for our book club -- not by my choice -- and finally found that I could read it alongside a really fantastic memoir! Then, it seemed to move in the most predictable manner with characters that I care little about, so I quit for the umpteenth time. Just means that I'll have to pick it up again in December, the month in which I host.

Oh, I know, we need to learn something from prejudice. But, this book rather preaches to the choir. I just can't help wondering why a totally "novel" novel couldn't have made some of the same statements. My real reaction is OUCH! Why is this book getting such attention?

Claire is one of the family survivors of the three thousand plus victims in the 911 bombing of the Twin Towers. She is a member of a large board of prominent New York leaders, artists and a variety of other individuals, acting as a jury to select the proper architectural design for a memorial to those who died in that horrendous event. After spending months reviewing architectural designs by many architects without knowing who the designers are, when finally the design is selected after much controversy, and the architect's name revealed, to the shock and dismay it turns out to be by an American Muslim, Mohammed Kahn, of ethnic Pakistani descent. Most of this jury is against selecting Kahn's design for fear of the havoc it would cause among New Yorkers and Americans in general as it might be considered more as a tribute to Islam, the faith of the terrorists who destroyed the Twin Towers and murdered good Americans, rather than a memorial to the 911 decedents. The jury attempts to keep the information of the architect's name secret until a firm decision is made as to whether they will utilize Kahn's design regardless of his Islamic affiliation. But there is a leak to an inexperienced but rather flakey and ambitious reporter, Alyssa Spier who works for the Post, a gossip, tattle-tale type of newspaper.

The rest of the story encompasses Claire defending against almost every other person on this jury Kahn's right to have his memorial design, "The Garden," selected regardless of being a Muslim. The newspaper, in order to sell copies, exaggerates its headlines, thereby inciting emotions that otherwise might have remained more sensible. First individuals and then groups of citizens in New York take sides. The pro-Muslim groups back Kahn and the anti-Muslim groups reject in toto Kahn's design. Kahn, an individualist and stubborn man, does not feel that he has to defend his work since he is an American, other than to explain why the Garden should encompass beauty as an expression of the memorial to the victims of the 911 assault. He will never deny nor admit that he is promoting Islam in any manner when drawing the plans. His is a simple garden with bushes, water, some steel trees, and walls for the names of the decedents, with enough geometric details to give it beauty. The closest he will admit its having any ideals of Islam is that it does follow the Muslim's idea of a meditative expression leading a Muslim to Allah. As time passes, many anti-Kahn protesters who are simply people who are usually unseen and unnoticed become the loudest and most violent advocates protesters against Kahn's memorial. This brings to the fore the more vociferous pro-Muslim organizations advocating for Kahn and the lines are drawn. The story reveals the personalities' weaknesses and strengths as these two American sides vigorously advocate their positions in the newspapers, rallies, and on talk shows.

As time passes, Claire does not have the strength to maintain her stance of defending Kahn, especially after she talks to him and he is too stubborn to explain himself. In his mind, he is an American first and foremost. In fact, he never even practices his faith. The tempest increases in rhetoric and violence until an illegal Pakistani widow, whose husband died in the twin towers, speaks on behalf of Kahn, telling of her pain, which was caused by bad Muslims. As is typical of Americans, out of compassion they are swayed towards accepting Kahn's memorial design. But then more violence ensues and the story ends with a twist.

The author did an excellent job of portraying in fiction what could occur in reality if a scenario like this were to occur. In fact, there already have been some actions and verbal expressions displayed in New York because of the possibility of a new mosque being built close to the 911 grounds. I liked this story for its realism and in its character study of human nature. I commend the author on her ability to bring this realism into our minds.

I know a lot of readers and critics love this book; however, I found it frustrating. After a very strong start, the book floundered in aimless dialog, superficial characters, and awkward writing. I don't feel that Waldman was able to reach into and explore the feelings and the motivations of the various individuals/groups involved. Also, the ending is too pat. The book could have been so much more.

Written by New York Times columnist/bureau chief Amy Waldron, The Submission posits a series of "what ifs" and then lets the turmoil unfold. In the aftermath of 9/11, with hundreds of families trying to cope with the magnitude of their loss and the entire country trying to cope with their loss of innocence, a competition is held to design the memorial which will be constructed at Ground Zero. Representatives to the selection committee are chosen from all levels of society, including a woman who has lost her husband in the attack, and their task is to choose the best design from all of the "blind" submissions. In the final tumultuous voting between two completely different designs, Claire Burwell, the woman widowed by the attack, favors the design of a garden, a place of peace and contemplation. Other committee members are swayed by Ariana, a famed sculptor, who favors a stark, monumental creation called "The Void," which Claire finds cold. As the debate rages, and the two women try to persuade their fellow committee members, the emotional reaction to The Garden, as advocated by Claire, prevails. When the envelope naming the architect is opened, they discover that they have chosen Mohammad Khan, an American, to design their memorial.

From here the novel takes off. Questions arise as to whether not to release the architect's name; whether his win can be "finessed" on the grounds that he could be considered "unsuitable," a loophole included in the terms of the selection; whether this is an insult which will inflame the already devastated families; whether the architect's religion should even be an issue; and how this will affect the Muslim population of the country, which is already dealing with negative aftereffects of the attack. Lines are drawn when a newspaper reporter reveals the results, with the predictable outcry and development of community groups to lobby for and against the choice, heavily weighted against Khan.

Though the arguments are developed thoroughly along philosophical and moral lines, and are not simply hot-headed reactions, the resulting tumult will strike a chord with readers--the passionate, real-life arguments for and against the proposed building of a mosque near Ground Zero in recent years make these arguments sound quite familiar. What makes this novel different, and often quite moving, is that it personalizes these arguments as we are drawn into the everyday lives of those who have been forever changed by the attack, as they make their points of view understandable, even when they are patently "un-American." The novel moves quickly, as Waldman sets up her conflicts, which are often aggravated by the ever-present press corps. Petty politics are equally repulsive, and the tendency of politicians to keep their eye on the next election, rather than what is right, rears its ugly head throughout. So, too, does the violence committed by hot-heads who have no insight into real issues.

As the story plays out, the author provides an insight into the future, describing the lives of the people in the novel a few years hence. Ultimately, Claire says it all: "So many more Americans ended up dying in the wars the attack prompted than in the attack itself that by the time they finished this memorial it seemed wrong to have expended so much effort and money. But it's almost like we fight over what we can't settle in real life through these symbols. They're our nation's afterlife." Mary Whipple

I read this book cover to cover, struggling to come to terms with the feelings from 9/11 that were once so strong. On one hand, the publication of this thoughtful and thought-provoking book is a hopeful sign: we are now ready to think about this terrible event and not just feel.

I think this is a very good book. The author, a former New York reporter, tries to show the diversity and complexity of the American reaction to 9/11. She plays upon the real process for a World Trade Center Memorial in which an international competition was held to select a design for a memorial at Ground Zero.

Her process, the winning design and the winning designer are fictional. In THE SUBMISSION, a committee comprised of politicians, artists and one lone representative of the 9/11 families chooses a design. Claire, a widow of a wealthy stockbroker and arts patron, strongly advocates for the Garden despite the contempt of the avant garde artists who oppose her.

Once the design is selected, the name of the designer is revealed to the dismay of the committee, the mayor of New York City and the governor of New York State...because that name is Mohammed Kahn.

Despite his name, Mo is an American, born in Virginia, a fine young architect chaffing at his subordinate position in a well-known firm of architects. He's not all that religious; his parents, immigrants, were mostly concerned with fitting in. Mo's a great character. Facing a wave of reaction in the wake of 9/11, he stubbornly refuses to answer questions "that would not be asked of anyone else". He didn't have anything to do with the tragedy so why should he have to explain his design or apologize for what he is?

His stiff-necked posture alienates other American Muslims; his lack of religion angers the jihadists. Even Claire, who loved his design, finally retracts her support because he won't satisfy her need for clarity.

Waldman covers the more intemperate elements of the American response; she incorporates some of the later controversy over the so-called mosque near Ground Zero in some of her fictional demonstrations which boil up into overt actions of hate. She looks at three families who lost members when the buildings fell: Claire and her young son; the never-do-well brother of an Irish-American firefighter; a young Bangladeshi widow, also with a young son, who fears being deported after the death of her janitor husband.

I think this is a clever book, a well-planned excursion into fiction, an excellent handling of the subject. If it has a weakness it is a little too cerebral--it holds a mirror up...but a mirror is not a window. This book offers us the possibility of reflection, but not yet a perspective to move us forward. Still excellent, still a book I'd recommend to others.

What would you do if a Muslim designed the 9/11 memorial? Think you know? Read this book and think again.

When I first picked up this book, I thought it would be an interesting read but figured it would display the typical viewpoints. The author went well beyond that and really made you think and feel. The characters were unique and the storyline kept moving. Often, books falter at the end but the story's close is a strong one. Thanks Amy Waldman for a wonderful thought-provoking book.

'The Submission' made an excellent book group choice - lots to discuss about the meaning and purpose of a memorial, what obligation an artist has to explain his/her work, how the media fuels prejudice, what is the 'right' thing to do in a situation like the one portrayed in the book.

Characters are somewhat stereotypical (the Irish family of a FDNY member, the widow of an illegal immigrant, the ambitious/unethical journalist, the wealthy/beautiful/young widow), but believable.

The premise of this fast-paced and entertaining book is that a submission by an American Muslim architect wins an anonymous contest for a memorial at ground zero to the victims of the September 11 attacks. The story proceeds right along the boundary of fiction and non-fiction.

The author nails the New York press and power culture, with made-up pieces from the New Yorker, the New York Observer, and the Weekly Standard that come close to what one might read in the real things. There's a flamboyant real estate mogul with a toupee and a liberal hedge-fund billionaire named George. There's a president who once owned a baseball team. There's a Web doyenne named Spier. There's a powerful woman politician who wears pantsuits.

The author seems to be against bigotry against American Muslims while also not being under any illusions about Islam. One character asks a defender of the Muslim architect's memorial plan how he reconciles his support of liberal causes with the oppression of women, gays, and minorities in many Muslim countries. Actually, the "liberal" villains and buffoons are part of the considerable fun of this novel (appreciated, given the grimness of the underlying topic), right down to the bearded former university president on the design-selection jury who likens allowing citizen input on the memorial at a hearing to letting the public decide on faculty, as if he could imagine no greater outrage.

If the book has a flaw it's that it sometimes can seem too much like a political essay, with arguments about current-events issues delivered through speeches by the characters. But the most powerful part of the book, the epilogue, gets well beyond that, into truths that novels at their best manage to convey sometimes even better than nonfiction.

Disclosure: I'm an acquaintance of the author.

I will recommend "The Submission" to my book club. It is well written, thought provoking, and moving. There are so many passages that I wish I had underlined. I will have to mark up my copy the next time I read it. The characters were realistic and believable. Isn't there a saying, "never discuss politics or religion"? This book makes me want to discuss both and so much more! A must read.

Didactic novels are tough. Unless they speak truths that no one has dared voice, or unless they present characters of such depth and originality that the characters transcend the limitations of the genre, they seem stale and dated even before the galley proofs are printed. Alas, The Submission is rather a timid pale book with rather timid pale characters. It has all the excitement of reading old newspapers.

The premise is that a committee selecting a design for a memorial commemorating 9/11 unknowingly, to everyone's horror, selects a design by someone with a Muslim name. I was very confused by the way Waldman handles this. The winning designer, Mohammed Khan, is a secularist, not a Muslim, but everyone in the novel regards him as a Muslim, and Waldman herself seems to consider him a Muslim. Really? Are you automatically a Muslim if you have a Muslim name? Of course, for that percentage of the population in the US that believes Obama is a Muslim, sure, but I would think Waldman's approach, at least, would be a little more sophisticated. And, clearly, there are questions of identity that could be usefully examined here, but Waldman largely ignores them. Waldman seems to implicitly criticize the formula that Muslim = terrorist, but isn't she just as lazy in her own thinking about what it means to be a Muslim? And it feels rather like cheating, writing a novel about the issues that arise when a Muslim becomes involved in a 9/11 memorial, but then making that character not really a Muslim.

She does address, rather indirectly, the pervasive anti-Muslim bias in the American media, but in the rather timid fashion she addresses everything else in The Submission. What are the roots of this bias? Is it just sheer racism? Pandering? I would love to see a no-holds-barred take down of the media here, some real passion, and I would think this would be a subject that Waldman would know a great deal about, but she certainly didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, and my insider knowledge of the workings of the media is pretty much non-existent.

I'd be much happier with this novel if Waldman had either made me want to join (or organize) a street demonstration, or if she had made me feel better informed about Western/Muslim interactions, but The Submission was simply too wishy-washy and mild on the one hand, and too short on hard facts on the other.

Brilliant concept. Waldman's take on American's Muslim-phobia was right on. It makes one ponder ones own feelings about American Muslims and it certainly was an eye opener for this reader. Bravo Ms. Waldman.

WHILE I READ THIS BOOK I KEPT WANTING TO KNOW THE PERSONALITIES BUT, NEVER WAS ALLOWED TO. IF THE PEOPLE HAD BEEN MORE REAL TO ME I THINK THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT BOOK. I ONLY HEARD THEIR VOICES AND HAD NO IDEA WHO THEY REALLY WERE. THE BOOK LEFT ME COLD BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF EMOTIONAL INTEGRATION

I have been entranced by the author's ability to capture the emotions of each character. She shows a particular knack for the sort of stream of consciousness thinking that is so literally human. A spell-binding book.

THE SUBMISSION by Amy Waldman addresses the current prejudicial climate towards Muslims in the U.S. since 9/11. Characters are interesting, if not a little over the top. The topic is great for a book club discussion and quite thought provoking.

This is a fairly well written first novel with insight into pro and anti Muslim views after 9/11.

However, the irony of a book that purports to understand 9/11 with a Muslim architect hero is rather excruciating. The some three thousand people who perished as a result of Muslim terrorists deserve something better than this pro Muslim screed by a former New York Times scribbler.

I am not sure what parallel universe Ms Waldman claims allegiance, but apparently we have very different takes on reality. This screed is hateful against nice, normal Americans who are not evil as she suggests. I hope it makes good compost.

It's two years after the 9/11 attacks, and America's psyche still hasn't quite recovered from those awful events. Claire Burwell's husband died in the attacks, and she is representing the families of those who perished on a jury to pick a memorial design for Ground Zero. The contest is anonymous, with no names associated with the designs the jury considers. After much deliberation, a design is chosen, but when it is revealed that the author is Muslim - Mohammad "Mo" Khan - it wreaks havoc on the jury, as well as the nation.

The Submission is a beautifully written, provocative novel that will leave readers reeling from its powerful message. Through the character of Mo Khan, an American-born architect who happens to be Muslim, Waldman asks the reader what it means to be an American. Does religion supersede nationality? Time and again, Khan explains to those against him that he is an American, yet it seems that no one will listen to him. America is a nation of many cultures, religions, and political views, yet there is a streak of intolerance running through the country that Waldman doesn't hesitate to uncover and probe.

The real strength of the novel, and what keeps it from being a sort of cliché, is its characters. Despite the fact that Mo becomes the face of Islam in the United States, of a people struggling to be accepted in their own country, he's not some paragon of virtue that wins hearts and minds. Instead, he's difficult, arrogant, and often immature. Claire, the seemingly perfect tragic widow, also has her own issues. She's struggling to be a single mother, while also bearing the burden of representing each and every family that lost a loved one. She wants to stick to her principles, but when is that price too high? These personal issues, so real and relevant, elevate the novel to another level entirely.

I can't say much more about The Submission except that it is one of my top reads of 2012. It is so beautiful and powerful, even in its ugliness and most desperate moments. I can't describe with words what Amy Waldman has accomplished with this book; it's amazingly relevant and incredibly thoughtful. This is one of those books that will stick with me for a very long time.

For four months, a selection committee has been eliminating contest entries for a 9/11 memorial from thousands of submissions. Now, twelve jurors (led by their committee chairman) engage in a heated debate between the final two submissions: "The Void," a 12-story high black granite monolith rising out of an oval pool of water, or "The Garden," a rectangle divided by canals, planted with both real trees and tree sculptures made from the steel of the fallen towers.

Several contentious hours later, the jurors agree on "The Garden," and Chairman Paul Joseph Rubin, "grandson of a Russian Jewish peasant" (p.15) calls for "the file for submission number 4879" so that the name of the winner of the "blind" contest can be revealed.

The sealed envelope is opened revealing the winner's name: Mohammed Khan.

When Mohammed Khan's name is revealed to the jurors (and later the public) the real contention begins, even though Mo Khan, is an American, an architect, a reserved, elegant man, (albeit a somewhat stubborn man) with an attachment to principle.

The design itself takes second place to the battles that emerge among strong personalities, wills and political agendas. People who are still in shock, still numbed by the loss of loved ones, even several years after the event, bring forth a torrent of emotions. Claire, the gardens chief defender, (who was widowed by the death of her husband on 9/11) begins to lose her conviction when she opens the New York Times and sees: "A Lovely Garden--and an Islamic One?" (p.115)

Islam is scrutinized from many different points of view. Khan himself, formerly non-religious, begins to perform the rituals of Islam. But, Khan is in fact so fundamentally non-religious that he makes an egregious "faux pas" against believers during a speech he gives explaining the basis of his design: "The gardens pre-date Islam, so perhaps the gardens we read about in the Quran were based on what existed at the time, maybe the gardens Mohammed saw when he traveled to Damascus. Maybe man wrote the Quran in response to his context: compared to the desert, gardens seemed heavenly, and so that's the heaven they created. They became their model for paradise." (p.218)

There is Asma, widowed by 9/11, an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh who lives quietly, and lives by Islamic cultural principles but wants to raise her American-born son under America's personal liberties. There is Debbie, the most outspoken opponent against Khan and Islam who bellows: "I want us to be clear that we are fighting for the soul of this country. For generations, immigrants came to this country and assimilated, accepted American values. But Muslims want to change America--no, they want to conquer it. Our Constitution protects religious freedom, but Islam is not a religion--it's a political ideology, a totalitarian one." (p.151)

A new ugliness emerges as men begin to prey on Muslim women, pulling at their headscarves. "Some non-Muslim women put on headscarves in solidarity, but no one preyed on them." And, the New York Times reports "a new, ominous strain of intolerance in the land." (p.164) And, of course, just as in real life, a handful of characters uphold "symbolic values" for personal acclaim, monetary or political gain.

After everybody had their say, was "The Void" or "The Garden" chosen as the memorial to honor the victims of 9/11? Let it suffice to say that the defining characteristics of "design by committee" are needless complexity, internal inconsistency, logical flaws, banality, and the lack of a unifying vision. (In a word: "hideous.")

Although there was a very short section where my interest ebbed, I liked this book, (was awed by Waldman's talent) and found it immensely thought provoking. I also thought the cross-section of Americans (and the conflicts among them) that Waldman brought forth through her brilliantly imagined characters were believable. On this tenth anniversary of 9/11, I learned that there was even more to understand about Islam than I have already been subjected to, realizing that the cultural aspects of Islam might be compatible with our American melting pot, but that the politico-religious aspects of Islam (conquest, totalitarianism) would certainly be at odds with our Constitutional rights.

This book is a definite YES for book clubs whose members would enjoy a heated debate, and who would be able to discuss what we were all taught to never discuss in public (religion) and still part company as cordial acquaintances. Then again, maybe not.

Amy Waldman packs a lot into 300 pages. She does a good job inside the heads of her characters -- presenting emotions and justifications and rationalizations and more emotions -- layer upon layer of complex human interactions. The characters are well developed and believable, even to the extent of being ... predictable. You can understand these people. I like it much better than I thought I would.