The Submission

The novel is punctuated with darkly comic details ... compelling ...Elegantly written and tightly plotted... [this] novel, at once lucid, illuminating and entertaining is a necessary gift.

Claire Messud, New York Times Book Review

There's nothing meek about Amy Waldman's high-powered debut...a searching, cerebral novel with the pitch and pace of a thriller... Acute and exhilarating.

Daily Mail

Waldman imagines a toxic brew of bigotry in conflict with idealism in this frighteningly plausible and tightly wound account of what might happen if a Muslim architect had won a contest to design a memorial at the World Trade Center site...Waldman keenly focuses on political and social variables...As misguided outrage flows from all corners, Waldman addresses with a refreshing frankness thorny moral questions and ethical ironies without resorting to breathless hyperbole.

Publisher’s Weekly, starred review

A wrenching panoramic novel about the politics of grief in the wake of 9/11.

Richard Price

Amy Waldman writes like a possessed angel. She also has the emotional smarts to write a story about Islam in America that fearlessly lasers through all our hallucinatory politics with elegant concision. This is no dull and worthy saga; it's a literary breakthrough that reads fast and breaks your heart.

Lorraine Adams

From this coup de théâtre Waldman skilfully spins out an ever-widening cast list...This is a deeply thoughtful and moving account of the myriad ways in which, when the towers came down, the US psyche became a casualty too.

Michael Prodger, Financial Times

Panoramic in scope but thrillingly light on its feet ... A gripping, deeply intelligent novel

Marie Claire

[A] poised and commanding debut novel...Waldman skillfully presents the perspectives of a handful of major characters...This is a remarkably assured portrait of how a populace grows maddened and confused when ideology trumps empathy. A stellar debut. Waldman's book reflects a much-needed understanding of American paranoia in the post-9/11 world.

Kirkus Review, starred review

A wonderful novel which challenges your beliefs.

The Sun

An absorbing, accomplished debut...an intelligent, satisfying read

Sunday Times

Exceptional debut ... a tale of complexity and tension...Waldman's prose is almost always pitch-perfect ... The characters are wholly realised and believable as individuals, but they also stand in for stories and conflicts that go beyond their own lives.

Kamila Shamsie, Guardian, Book of the Week

In her magnetizing first novel, replete with searing insights and exquisite metaphors, Waldman, formerly a New York Times reporter and co-chief of the South Asia bureau, maps shadowy psychological terrain and a vast social minefield as conflicted men and women confront life-and-death moral quandaries within the glare and din of a media carnival. Waldman brilliantly delineates the legacy of 9/11; the confluence of art, religion, and politics; the plexus between the individual and the group; and the glory of transcendent empathy in The Bonfire of the Vanities for our time.

Booklist, starred review