Book Review- True American by Anand Giridharadas
Disclaimer: This review is NOT sponsored by the author or the publisher. I did, however, receive this book for FREE from the University which I will be attending in the fall. The targeted audience for this review, therefore, is other students attending the same university as me, but may also be of use to my other followers.
The True American tells the story of Raisuddin Bhuiyan, a Bangladesh Air Force officer who dreams of immigrating to America and working in technology. But days after 9/11, an avowed "American terrorist" named Mark Stroman, seeking revenge, walks into the Dallas minimart where Bhuiyan has found temporary work and shoots him, maiming and nearly killing him. Two other victims, at other gas stations, aren’t so lucky, dying at once.
The True American traces the making of these two men, Stroman and Bhuiyan, and of their fateful encounter. It follows them as they rebuild shattered lives—one striving on Death Row to become a better man, the other to heal and pull himself up from the lowest rung on the ladder of an unfamiliar country.
Ten years after the shooting, an Islamic pilgrimage seeds in Bhuiyan a strange idea: if he is ever to be whole, he must reenter Stroman's life. He longs to confront Stroman and speak to him face to face about the attack that changed their lives. Bhuiyan publicly forgives Stroman, in the name of his religion and its notion of mercy. Then he wages a legal and public-relations campaign, against the State of Texas and Governor Rick Perry, to have his attacker spared from the death penalty.
Ranging from Texas's juvenile justice system to the swirling crowd of pilgrims at the Hajj in Mecca; from a biker bar to an immigrant mosque in Dallas; from young military cadets in Bangladesh to elite paratroopers in Israel; from a wealthy household of chicken importers in Karachi, Pakistan, to the sober residences of Brownwood, Texas, The True American is a rich, colorful, profoundly moving exploration of the American dream in its many dimensions. Ultimately it tells a story about our love-hate relationship with immigrants, about the encounter of Islam and the West, about how—or whether—we choose what we become.
I had very mixed feelings about this book. I felt that the story itself, and the character development were fantastic. The character development is arguably the best I have ever seen in a novel, but that probably stems from the fact that this book is non-fiction, and in real life people actually do develop quite a bit over the course of a decade. Lets move onto pros and cons of this book.
Pros: As mentioned before the character development is amazing, and shows just how much we as humans can grow, if introduced to the right people and given the right opportunity. Mark Stroman (the killer), in particular, experiences tremendous growth, transitioning from a xenophobic man, to one interested in studying social justice causes, and history related to the Holocaust. He truly realizes the mistakes in his actions, unfortunately too late. It is perhaps possible that he could have been reformed, but instead his execution is carried out. This book may make those in favor of the death penalty re-think their views on whether any crime is really worth death.
This book also shows a very positive view of Islam. Having studied Islam extensively in school, the book accurately depicts many of the positive parts of Islam, and the Koran, the parts which are now more often overshadowed by American News-media . It shows that regardless of what the news tells us, there are some Muslims who are truly good people, and some white christian men, who are not.
The author is a pretty mediocre writer. To begin with, he goes into way too much detail, detail unnecessary to the story. Your mind ends up feeling rather clouded by all of the information which you are being provided. I believe that this is done in an attempt to make the story long enough to produce an entire book for the publisher. In reality the story would have probably been better had the unnecessary details been left out, and if it was published instead as a long news article in NewsWeek or Time.
The chapters are also much longer than they ought to be. The author fails to break up the book at necessary points. Within each chapter we are presented with multiple points of view, often taking place in different locations, during different periods of time. This makes the book much more confusing than it ought to be, when you suddenly look up and realize that the entire setting has changed in the blink of an eye.
The narration, is perhaps, the most awkward part of the entire novel. The narrator is omniscient, and the whole story is told in the 3rd person. The author never explains how he received all the facts of the story, or his relationship to any of the characters. At the end he thanks Ziv, a documentary film maker who gathered some footage of Stroman for sharing his insight. However, what documentary maker would give up this information? This entire story would be golden as a documentary, and the filmmaker probably lost a lot of potential profit. Because the author never reveals his relationship to the characters and the story, I cannot trust many of the facts presented. This drastically lowers the quality that can be found in the book.
What you should read instead of this book: As I read this book, two other books came to mind that I believe better portray stories with similar themes. Both books are also non-fiction. In one case (Zeitoun), I believe the story is even more exciting than the one depicted in this book.
1. The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore- The book is about two men who grew up in Baltimore. They were both named Wes Moore and they were the exact same age, and they grew up under similar circumstances. One went on to become incredibly succesful, the other is now sitting in a jail cell in Jessup, Maryland. This book touches on the theme of poor decisions, the American penal system, and how a bad childhood can affect someone for the rest of their life, and lead them to become a hardened criminal. The Other Wes Moore is a pretty good read, though also not a perfect book. I gave it 1.5 more stars (4 stars total) than I gave this book.
2. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers- Zeitoun tells the story of a Muslim man named Zeitoun living in New Orleans during the time Hurricane Katrina hits. Zeitoun is a good Samaritan who uses his canoe to help save his neighbors and their pets, however due to some mix-ups involving the Patriot Act, Zeitoun ends up in a jail, where he is given the same amount of rights as terrorists incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay. The prison is kept a secret, as is the fact that he’s there. Unlike True American, Dave Eggers actually explains how he personally knows Zeitoun and how they collaborated on this novel. I also applaud it for it’s anti-racism themes and for showing Muslim people doing heroic actions. I gave this book a full five stars.
Unfortunately, I could not think of a book that deals directly with the death penalty theme better than True American does. But I believe that this is a secondary theme, one that will make for an interesting discussion in the fall for sure, but is not supposed to be the main take away from this novel.
After much debate, I ended up giving this novel 2.5 stars. I believe that it will make for an excellent discussion in the fall, but I am also under the impression that there are many books which would have been better choices for the 2015 Common Read.
