A Door in the Earth
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4.3 • 16 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of The Submission: A young Afghan-American woman is trapped between her ideals and the complicated truth in this "penetrating" (O, Oprah Magazine), "stealthily suspenseful," (Booklist, starred review), "breathtaking and achingly nuanced" (Kirkus, starred review) novel.
Parveen Shams, a college senior in search of a calling, feels pulled between her charismatic and mercurial anthropology professor and the comfortable but predictable Afghan-American community in her Northern California hometown. When she discovers a bestselling book called Mother Afghanistan, a memoir by humanitarian Gideon Crane that has become a bible for American engagement in the country, she is inspired. Galvanized by Crane's experience, Parveen travels to a remote village in the land of her birth to join the work of his charitable foundation.
When she arrives, however, Crane's maternity clinic, while grandly equipped, is mostly unstaffed. The villagers do not exhibit the gratitude she expected to receive. And Crane's memoir appears to be littered with mistakes, or outright fabrications. As the reasons for Parveen's pilgrimage crumble beneath her, the U.S. military, also drawn by Crane's book, turns up to pave the solde road to the village, bringing the war in their wake. When a fatal ambush occurs, Parveen must decide whether her loyalties lie with the villagers or the soldiers -- and she must determine her own relationship to the truth.
Amy Waldman, who reported from Afghanistan for the New York Times after 9/11, has created a taut, propulsive novel about power, perspective, and idealism, brushing aside the dust of America's longest-standing war to reveal the complicated truths beneath. A Door in the Earth is the rarest of books, one that helps us understand living history through poignant characters and unforgettable storytelling.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Waldman's potent novel (after The Submission) follows Parveen Shamsa, freshly out of college and inspired by Mother Afghanistan, a memoir written by an American ophthalmologist named Gideon Crane recounting his time working in remote Afghanistan, as she sets out to retrace Crane's footsteps. Armed with a grant from UC Berkeley and introductions to Crane's old host, Waheed, Parveen, an Afghan-American from Northern California, heads for the maternity clinic Crane built for the village, intent on reconnecting with her Afghan heritage and actualizing her idealism. Reality, however, is far more complicated than Crane's palatable account: without a doctor, the clinic is a hollow shell, and Crane's meddling did little more than throw the lives of locals into chaos. When a detachment of U.S. Army engineers begin construction on a road to the village a PR play inspired by the clinic's fame the convenient fantasy constructed by Mother Afghanistan comes into direct conflict with the messy realities of war. Waldman, a former reporter for the New York Times out of Kabul, paints a blistering portrayal of the misguided aspirations and convenient lies that have fed the war in Afghanistan. This is an impressive novel.)
