His entry begins:
I’ve been meaning to buy some new bookshelves for a while now, as mine are full. So for about the past nine months I’ve been placing everything that I read on the side of my desk into these perilous stacks. Glancing over to the books balanced on the top, the first title that catches my eye is the American edition of Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías. Set in Madrid in 1980, it is a novel centered around a broken, even contemptuous marriage between Eduardo Muriel a once successful filmmaker and his wife Beatrice. When Muriel takes on a young assistant, Juan de Vere, to help him with his latest project, the central conflict within the marriage is slowly revealed. It’s a...[read on]About Dark at the Crossing, from the publisher:
From the author of the acclaimed Green on Blue, a timely new novel of stunning humanity and tension: a contemporary love story set on the Turkish border with Syria.Visit Elliot Ackerman's website.
Haris Abadi is a man in search of a cause. An Arab American with a conflicted past, he is now in Turkey, attempting to cross into Syria and join thefight against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. But he is robbed before he can make it, and is taken in by Amir, a charismatic Syrian refugee and former revolutionary, and Amir’s wife, Daphne, a sophisticated beauty haunted by grief. As it becomes clear that Daphne is also desperate to return to Syria, Haris’s choices become ever more wrenching: Whose side is he really on? Is he a true radical or simply an idealist? And will he be able to bring meaning to a life of increasing frustration and helplessness? Told with compassion and a deft hand, Dark at the Crossing is an exploration of loss, of second chances, and of why we choose to believe–a trenchantly observed novel of raw urgency and power.
The Page 69 Test: Green on Blue.
My Book, The Movie: Green on Blue.
My Book, The Movie: Dark at the Crossing.
The Page 69 Test: Dark at the Crossing.
Writers Read: Elliot Ackerman.
--Marshal Zeringue
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