The Garden of Last Days: A Novel

From Publishers Weekly Dubus's ambitious if uneven follow-up to House of Sand and Fog begins shortly before 9/11 with stripper April taking her three-year-old daughter, Franny, to work after the babysitter flakes at the last minute. Though she leaves Franny with the club's house mother and intends to keep tabs on her, April's distracted on the floor by Bassam, a Muslim who's in Florida to take flying lessons and (like one of the real 9/11 hijackers) spends early September 2001 throwing around money and living lasciviously. Meanwhile, AJ, a down-on-his-luck local, lingers in the parking lot after getting thrown out for touching a dancer. The slow-starting plot splinters once Franny wanders outside and disappears. Soon, AJ's wanted for kidnapping, April's run through the social service wringers as an unfit parent, and the murky particulars of Bassam's mission come into sharp focus as he struggles with his religious convictions. Dubus gives the breath of life to most of his characters (Bassam—not so much), though the narrative has a mechanical feeling, partially owing to the narrow emotional register Dubus works in: doom and desperation are in plentiful supply from page one, and as the novel fades to black, the reader's left with a roster of sadder-but-wiser Americans to contemplate. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From The New Yorker Dubusx92s follow-up to "House of Sand and Fog" is inspired by the rumored visit of 9/11 hijackers to a strip club shortly before their attacks. In the fictional Puma Club, in Sarasota, Florida, a twenty-six-year-old named Bassam al-Jizani watches Spring, a stripper, undress, and finds his "hatred for these kufar rising with the knowledge of his own weakness." We know he is entranced, because he does not imagine slitting her throat, as he does with most people he encounters. Bassam recoils from the hedonistic pursuits of the West, yet finds himself drawn to them; losing his virginity to a prostitute, he wonders, "How many years will she be given by the Creator before she will burn?" Imagining the mind of a terrorist, Dubus runs into a familiar problem: Bassamx92s thoughts are a case study in the banality of evil. "Hatred gives him strength," he writes. But it doesnx92t make him interesting. Copyright ©2008 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker From Bookmarks Magazine Despite criticsâx80x99 high hopes, The Garden of Last Days proves to be a âx80x9cbig, uneven novel with aspirations it canâx80x99t quite fulfillâx80x9d ( Los Angeles Times ). Andre Dubus III nimbly navigates the chasm between culturesâx80"between the world of the intolerant extremist and that of the decadent Westernerâx80"and draws his characters with compassion. Unfortunately, though Dubusâx80x99s research is evident, Bassam emerges as little more than a stereotype, his stilted English, peppered with Arabic phrases, awkward and forced. Dubus slows the plotâx80x99s pace to allow his characters to fully develop, but this choice drains the narrative of tension and robs the climax of its punch. Dubusâx80x99s considerable talent notwithstanding, the daring Garden does not rise to the level of its best-selling predecessor. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. From Booklist In the best-selling House of Sand and Fog (1999), Dubus engineered an electrifying conflict between an American woman and an Iranian colonel in exile. In his long-awaited new novel, Dubus fashions another disturbing and revealing encounter between an American woman on the edge and an intense Muslim man. But in this risky and relentless tale set on the verge of 9/11, sexual mores serve as a gauge of the perilous divide between American freedom and Muslim extremism. April is a single mother living in Florida and working as a stripper. When Jean, her babysitter and landlady, is unexpectedly hospitalized, she brings her three-year-old daughter to the Puma Club for Men, clearly courting trouble. And sure enough, while April performs in private for Bassam, a high-strung stranger with a surplus of cash and misery, all hell breaks loose. Narrating commandingly in five voices, Dubus ramps up the suspense while circling back to reveal April’s cruel indoctrination into the stripper’s life, the tragedy that made Bassam a jihadist, Jean’s sorrows, Lonnie the bouncer’s secret, and the dangerous despair of a man he forcibly ejects from the club. Improvising on the pre-attack actions of the 9/11 terrorists, Dubus’ hyperdetailed, visceral,xa0and prurient yet undeniably compassionatexa0thriller boldly explores the bewildering complexities of sexuality, and the dire repercussions of isolation and desperation. --Donna Seaman Andre Dubus III is the author of Such Kindness and 8 other books, including the bestsellers Townie , a memoir, and House of Sand and Fog , a National Book Award Finalist in Fiction and an Oprah’s Book Club selection. He lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Read more