Starred Review. Ripped from the headlines doesn't begin to describe Updike's latest, a by-the-numbers novelization of the last five years' news reports on the dangers of home-grown terror that packs a gut punch. Ahmad Mulloy Ashmawy is 18 and attends Central High School in the New York metro area working class city of New Prospect, N.J. He is the son of an Egyptian exchange student who married a working-class Irish-American girl and then disappeared when Ahmad was three. Ahmad, disgusted by his mother's inability to get it together, is in the thrall of Shaikh Rashid, who runs a storefront mosque and preaches divine retribution for "devils," including the "Zionist dominated federal government." The list of devils is long: it includes Joryleen Grant, the wayward African-American girl with a heart of gold; Tylenol Jones, a black tough guy with whom Ahmad obliquely competes for Joryleen's attentions (which Ahmad eventually pays for); Jack Levy, a Central High guidance counselor who at 63 has seen enough failure, including his own, to last him a lifetime (and whose Jewishness plays a part in a manner unthinkable before 9/11); Jack's wife, Beth, as ineffectual and overweight (Updike is merciless on this) as she is oblivious; and Teresa Mulloy, a nurse's aide and Sunday painter as desperate for Jack's attention, when he takes on Ahmad's case, as Jack is for hers.
Ficha técnica
Editorial: Ballantine Books (Random)
ISBN: 9780345498755
Idioma: Inglés
Número de páginas: 305
Tiempo de lectura:
6h 16m
Encuadernación: Tapa blanda
Fecha de lanzamiento: 02/07/2007
Año de edición: 2007
Plaza de edición: London
Especificaciones del producto
Escrito por John Updike
(Shillington, Pennsylvania, 1932) es autor de más de cincuenta libros, entre los que se cuentan, con ésta, veinte novelas. Además de haber sido galardonado en dos ocasiones con el Premio Pulitzer (en 1982 y 1991), en 1982 obtuvo el American Book Award.