The Submission

Claire Harwell hasn't settled into grief; events haven't let her. Cool, eloquent, raising two fatherless children, Claire has emerged as the most visible of the widows who became a potent political force in the aftermath of the catastrophe. She longs for her husband, but she has found her mission: she sits on a jury charged with selecting a fitting memorial for the victims of the attack. Of the thousands of anonymous submissions that she and her fellow jurors examine, one transfixes Claire: a garden on whose walls the names of the dead are inscribed. But when the winning envelope is opened, they find the designer is Mohammad Khan-Mo-an enigmatic Muslim-American who, it seems, feels no need to represent anyone's beliefs except his own. When the design and its creator are leaked, a media firestorm erupts, and Claire finds herself trying to balance principles against emotions amid escalating tensions about the place of Islam in America. A remarkably bold and ambitious debut, The Submission is peopled with journalists, activists, mourners, and bureaucrats who struggle for advantage and fight for their ideals. In this deeply humane novel, the breadth of Amy Waldman's cast of characters is matched by her startling ability to conjure individual lives from their own points of view. A striking portrait of a city-and a country-fractured by old hatreds and new struggles, The Submission is a major novel by an important new talent. A Kirkus Reviews "New and Notable Title", August 2011. A 2011 Entertainment Weekly Best Book for Fiction. A 2011 NPR Best Book for Fiction. A 2011 Washington Post Notable Book for Fiction. A 2011 Esquire Magazine Best Book of the Year for Fiction. A 2011 Kirkus Reviews Top 25 Book for Fiction. A 2011 Barnes & Noble Best Book for Fiction. A 2012 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award Finalist. A 2011 Guardian First Book Award Finalist. Longlisted for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. A 2011 New York Times Book Review Notable Book.