Review and Interview at Bookpage.com

American Taliban is reviewed by Lauren Bufferd for bookpage. A q&a follows. Excerpt:
Q. What do you think a fictionalized or imagined account of a real-life person or event can tell us that a book of nonfiction cannot?
A. If you believe, as I do, that imaginative empathy, which demands stretching yourself, is one of the most powerful ways to understand the other, then a fictionalized imagined account has greater access to that understanding. Facts often tell us very little, and sometimes, perhaps I should say often, they turn out not to be factual, as we know from our study of historical accounts.

Does this man qualify?

A Times Online Headline reads:
“Murder of white supremacist Eugene Terre’Blanche may make him a martyr.” Read more.

Library Journal Review

Verdict: The author has taken a complex and volatile subject and brought it to a human scale, without compromising or trivializing the global importance of the issues raised. An incredible achievement; highly recommended. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs.

Countdown: 10 days to Pub Date

AMERICAN TALIBAN will be in bookstores 13 April. Stop at your local bookstores to see it, hold it, buy it.

“So south on 12 from Southern Shores through Kitty Hawk into Kill Devil Hills out of Nags Head on to Whalebone and Bodie Island toward Oregon Inlet toward Rodanthe past Salvo past the residential developments of upper Hatteras, where traffic thins and land narrows, he and the girls drove and drove and drove, and finally water, water left and right, water straight ahead, they were driving toward water, water and sky and water and sky, finally. Spurts of dune grass barely holding on.”

Early Review in The Village Voice

Abraham’s breathless, exhilarating style matches the timely subject matter as she grapples with the question of how a search for truth might lead a normal American kid into the jaws of the sworn enemies of his homeland. –The Village Voice

Short Review in More Magazine

“Abraham’s riveting fourth novel shows how the unthinkable can happen when a young American dreamer becomes a fanatic. In the months leading up to 9.11, college bound John Jude Parish–lover of Dylan and the Tao Te Ching–becomes smitten with the rigor and doctrinal purity of radical Islam. He ends up thirsting for self-abnegation in the forbidding mountains of Pakistan. This nuanced portrait of a homegrown terrorist goes far beyond the headline evoked by its title to explore the imperatives of love, the lure of exotic adventure and the rocky terrain of faith.”

Hot Off the Press

Just picked up the first hard copy of AMERICAN TALIBAN and it is very beautiful. No errors found yet, either!
Also a review of AMERICAN TALIBAN in bookpage: http://bookpage.com/books-10013072-American+Taliban
Look for the upcoming q&a at bookpage.com too.

Save the Date

An initial reading schedule for American Taliban is now posted under Appearances so check the dates, save the dates, share them, twitter them. Come.

Review of American Taliban

Lisa Shea reviews American Taliban for Elle magazine’s April issue, on newstands now.

A blond, blue-eyed female American Taliban

Jihad Jane: A blond, blue-eyed female American Taliban
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0312/Jihad-Jane-joins-growing-list-of-American-terror-suspects