An American Family, Khizr Khan
An American Family, Khizr Khan
List: $20.00 | Sale: $14.00
Club: $10.00

An American Family
A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice

Author: Khizr Khan

Narrator: Khizr Khan

Unabridged: 11 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/24/2017

Synopsis

This “moving [and] wonderful” memoir by the Muslim American Gold Star father, captivating DNC speaker, and 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient is “a story about family and faith [that] can teach all of us what real American patriotism looks like” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
“[Khizr] Khan offers a valuable perspective as we continue to debate what kind of country we want to be.”—The Washington Post (Best Books of the Year)
 
Khizr Khan electrified viewers around the world when he took the stage at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. And when he offered to lend Donald Trump his own much-read and dog-eared pocket Constitution, his gesture perfectly encapsulated the feelings of millions.
 
In this urgent and timeless immigrant story, Khan shares the extraordinary, ordinary journey that led him to that moment: He was the oldest of ten children born to farmers in Pakistan. He was a university student who read the Declaration of Independence and was awestruck by what might be possible in life. He was a hopeful suitor, awkwardly but earnestly trying to win the heart of a woman far out of his league. He was a loving father who, having instilled in his children the ideals that enticed him and his wife to America, tragically lost his son, an Army captain, in the Iraq War. He was and is a patriot, and a fierce advocate for the values enshrined in the American system. 
 
An American Family shows us who Khizr Khan and millions of other American immigrants are, and why—especially in these tumultuous times—we must not be afraid to step forward for what we believe in when it matters most.

About The Author

Khizr Khan was born in 1950, the eldest of ten children, in rural Pakistan. He moved to the United States with his wife Ghazala, in 1980. The couple became American citizens and raised their three sons in Silver Spring, Maryland. Their middle son, U.S. army captain Humayun Khan, a graduate of the University of Virginia and its Army ROTC program, was killed in 2004 while stopping a suicide attack near Baqubah, Iraq. He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. Khizr Khan holds a BA degree from Punjab University, an LLB from Punjab University Law College, and an LLM from Harvard Law School. He is a member of the bar of the United States Supreme Court; the Washington, D.C., State Bar; the New York State Bar; and the American Bar Association. The focus of Khan's legal practice is on complex civil litigation, electronic discovery, health privacy compliance law, and civil rights and veterans' rights advocacy. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022. He and Ghazala live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Krystal on August 18, 2017

Khizr Khan is a gifted memoirist and his family's American life is a revelation! Unfortunately, it also illuminates how model minority myths will never keep us safe from white supremacist harm.......more

Goodreads review by Rebecca on September 11, 2019

I am an American patriot not because I was born here but because I was not. I embraced American freedoms, raised my children to cherish and revere them, lost a son who swore an oath to defend them, because I come from a place where they do not exist." Khizr Khan may be a familiar face from the 2016......more

Goodreads review by Susanne on January 11, 2018

Oh my. I am moved beyond words by this memoir of a modest man of humble origins who moved to the United States from Pakistan to further his education, became a citizen, and now reminds us all of the gift it is to live in America. He writes: "I am an American patriot not because I was born here but b......more

Goodreads review by Melkor on October 09, 2017

This is an exceptional short work by Harvard graduate, immigrant, gold star father Mr. Khizr Khan. Mr. Khan has written a moving and poignant book on his family's trials and tribulations from his humble origins in Pakistan, to his success in the United States. Intermixed with the narrative is an app......more

Goodreads review by Rebecca on January 19, 2018

This book is where cynicism goes to die. Mr. and Mrs. Khan are remarkable people and remarkable Americans, and Mr. Khan's understated, plain-spoken memoir is a welcome corrective to most of what passes for patriotism in this political climate.......more

Quotes

“I’d like to say to Mr. and Mrs. Khan: Thank you for immigrating to America. We’re a better country because of you. And you are certainly right; your son was the best of America, and the memory of his sacrifice will make us a better nation—and he will never be forgotten.”—Senator John McCain
 
“A small but lovely immigrant’s journey, full of carefully-observed details from the order in which Ghazala served tea at a university event, to the schedule of the police patrols in the Boston Public Garden where Khan briefly slept while he was in between apartments, to the description of Humayun’s headstone as a ‘slab of white marble with soft streaks the color of wood smoke.’ . . . Most importantly, the book is an effective argument for the depth of Khan’s love for and knowledge of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the amendments to it. He emerges as such an eloquent advocate for both documents, and for American values, that I finished An American Family with my own sense of patriotism and sense of civic obligation revitalized.”—Alyssa Rosenberg, The Washington Post

“Part autobiography, part civics lesson . . . and part patriotic message about the goodness of all Americans.”—BuzzFeed

“[A] wide- eyed and eloquent memoir . . . A sense of wonder about America’s promise peppers the entire narrative, even as he recounts his early struggles in the country while supporting his wife and three boys. . . . This account is especially resonant now.”—Booklist

“Sometimes it takes a newcomer to point out the beauty that old- timers take for granted. America, more than any other country, was founded upon ideals: individual freedoms, equal protection and due process of law. Khan reminds us that these ideals are worth fighting—and even dying—for. The Khans truly are the most American of families.”—BookPage

“An American Family holds its own alongside other fine memoirs of immigration and would be an inspired addition to any college or high school syllabus. The Gold Star father who spoke so movingly at the 2016 Democratic National Convention is just as affecting on the page.”—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“Khan’s aspirational memoir reminds us all why Americans should welcome newcomers from all lands.”—Kirkus Reviews

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List