The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson (Random House)

Alex Berenson was a reporter for New York Times and has extensively covered the occupation of Iraq. He uses his experience and has created a story for post-911 America. The Faithful Spy is his book and it has won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. 

It is about an undercover CIA agent named John Wells, who has successfully infiltrated Al Qaeda before the events of 9-11. “After years of fighting jihad in Afghanistan and Chechniya, he spoke perfect Arabic and Pashtun, his beard was long, his hands calloused”.  He rode horses as well as any native Afghan, enjoyed the sport buzkashi, an Afghan version of polo but instead of using a ball, the objective of the game is to place a dead calf or goat in a goal. He played as hard as any Afghan.  “He prayed with them. He had proven that he belonged here, with these men”. He had also become a Muslim. The Taliban and Al Qaeda members call him Jalal.

The story begins a few months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. The story opens with Wells and a few of his jihadist friends being in the middle of a battle in Afghanistan. Their small group is planning on attacking Marines who are stationed nearby. Wells plans to take out his comrades and to try to get a message to his CIA handler.  

Around the same time that Wells was doing battle, Jennifer Exley, She was asked by her superiors to go to the U.S.S. Starker, which was sitting out in the Atlantic Ocean in international waters, “so its precious cargo would remain outside the jurisdiction of American courts”. 

Onboard the naval ship is just one prisoner. A young man named Tim Kiefer who went by the name of Mohammad Faisal. He was a twenty-two year old American who was fighting for the Taliban “against the United States”. The American public was aware of the capture of John Walker Lindh, which the media dubbed the American Taliban. Keifer’s capture was kept quiet and President Bush had signed an order declaring Kiefer an “enemy combatant”. Exley was here to question him about one other American - John Wells who has been incommunicado for the last two years.

The story progresses at a fast pace. Wells does manage to take out the terrorists who were his buddies and was taken in by the U.S. military where he gave them as much information as he could about what he had learned. He also writes a note and asks Major Holmes to make sure Jennifer Exley at the CIA gets his handwritten message. “Will pursue UBL. No prior knowledge of 9/11. Still friendly, John ”. 

John Wells is caught between two worlds. It is similar to the real-life situation of Agent Storm : My Life in Al Qaeda (reviewed in Asia by the Book, April 7, 2023). Unlike Mortem Storm in the real story, Wells goes back to the terrorist fold because he knows that the upper leaders are planning on something bigger than 9-11. He is determined to find out what and when will it happen. But little does he know, he is part of the plan as well… ~Ernie Hoyt

Soldiers of God : With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Robert D. Kaplan (Vintage)

Robert K. Kaplan’s Soldiers of God was first published in 1990 with the subtitle “With the Mujahideen in Afghanistan”. He states that “it provides historical context for the emergence of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network. His final chapter of the new edition titled “The Lawless Frontier” was first published as a long article in the Atlantic Monthly and provides a follow up to post-Taliban Afghanistan.

In 1979, the former Soviet Union with the backing of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, attacked the small Central Asian nation  without provocation and continued to occupy the country until their withdrawal in 1988. 

Kaplan was one of the first American journalists to travel with the Mujahideen, a collective name for the insurgents, that fought a nine-year guerilla war against one of the world’s most powerful nations and won. Without them, it would not have been possible for Kaplan to even set foot in Afghanistan. 

During the war, the Soviets heavily mined the land of Afghanistan. No one is sure of the actual numbers. Britain’s BBC stated “millions”. The Afghan resistance claimed five million. The U.S. government’s estimate was about three million. However, in 1988, a State Department spokesman said the figure was more likely “between ten and thirty million”. According to Kaplan, “that would be two mines for every Afghan who survived the war.” 

In order to report on the war, journalists first had to get to the war but this required more effort than it was worth for most of the media. Not only did the journalists have to contend with the dangers of stepping on a mine, they were faced with boredom, disease, and exhaustion. 

In the beginning, Kaplan reported the news from Peshawar, the closest city to Afghanistan but is located in Pakistan. He was determined to see for himself the realities of the war that virtually the whole world was unaware of. 

In one of his final journeys “inside”, and supposedly after the Mujahideen secured the nearest airport in Kandahar, a city located in the northern part of Afghanistan, Kaplan saw with his own eyes that the Soviets were sending some soldiers back to the city and were also using the airport. When he mentions this to an American diplomat, the government man responds by saying Inter-Services Intelligence, the intelligence agency of Pakistan, reassures the U.S. that this is not the case. 

Traveling with Kaplan and his Mujahideen companions makes this book read more like an Ian Fleming spy novel without the women or gadgets that help James Bond. It’s also very scary because it’s real. Americans don’t realize it but it was a proxy war between the Soviet Union and the U.S. with the U.S. government providing arms to the mujahideen to fight the communist forces. It was a veiled Vietnam War that wasn’t given national coverage so most Americans did not see the tragedy from the comforts of their home in their living rooms. 

Now, here in the 21st century, Russia has attacked a sovereign nation without cause for its own gain and is being condemned by the international community. It appears that the current president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, didn’t study up on the history of his nation. The Ukrainians are not going to willingly agree to the terms set by Putin’s government to end the current war. 

Putin’s demands are for the Ukraine to agree that the Crimea as part of Russia (another piece of land that was seized illegally by the Russians), to recognize to the two pro-Russian provinces in the Ukraine, Luhansk and Donetsk, as independent nations, and to promise not to try joining the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Putin states his reasons for military action is to “deNazify” the Ukraine. I’m sorry, but the only Nazi in this scenerio is the current president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. And so once again, we see history repeating itself. ~Ernie Hoyt

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)

And the Mountains Echoed is Khaled Hosseini’s third novel. He has written another epic novel focusing on his home country of Afghanistan and the bonds of family. The story spans over sixty years and starts in the small village of Shadbagh in 1952. Abdullah and Pari are brother and sister and they were always together. Pari was Abdullah’s junior by seven years. Their mother died while giving birth to Pari. The story opens with their father, Saboor, telling the children a story about Baba Ayub, a simple farmer who is forced to make a hard choice. He must choose to sacrifice one of his children to appease an evil entity called the Div. Hossein’s clever use of foreshadowing sets the tone for the rest of the story. 

Abdullah’s father, Saboor, remarried but he was always busy in the fields, his stepmother was busy taking care of her own children so Abdullah took it upon himself to be a father figure to Pari. In the fall of 1952, Abdullah’s father was taking Pari to Kabul. He often found feathers for his sister who kept them as a treasure in a box. The father told Abdullah he was to stay home and help his mother and Iqbal. Abdullah thought, “She’s your wife. My mother, we buried.” Abdullah’s father is resigned to the fact that his son is determined to come along and watch after his sister. Little does Abdullah know that this would be the last time he would see his sister. 

We are then introduced to Uncle Nabi. Nabi is Saboor’s wife’s brother. It is Uncle Nabi who sets the entire story in motion. He works as a driver for a wealthy couple, the Wahdatis, who live in Kabul. He has also found a job for Saboor in the city. Abdullah doesn’t understand why his father sets out for the city in a wagon when he could have Uncle Nabi come pick him up in his employer’s car. He also doesn’t know why Father is taking Pari with him as she’s too young to be of any help. 

Uncle Nabi doesn’t just find a job for Saboor, it is he who makes the suggestion and arranges the “sale” of Pari to the wealthy couple. However, his motives are not really in the financial interests of his sister’s husband. He can see that the marriage is one of convenience and although Mrs. Wadahti is very sociable, her main desire is to have a child of her own. 

Uncle Nabi is in love with his employer’s wife and believes that if he grants her this one wish, she will think of him as more than just her husband’s chauffeur. Unfortunately for Uncle Nabi, once Pari becomes part of the household, Mrs. Nabi’s universe is centered around Pari. Soon afterward, Mrs Nabi leaves her husband and takes Pari to live with her in Paris. 

The story continues to follow the two main characters. Pari grows up knowing almost nothing about her past before the Wadahtis but always feels that there is something missing in her life. Something or someone important. Abdullah grows old but holds on to a yellow feather which is a reminder to him that he once had a sister. 

The actions of each character make you ponder what would you do if you were in their shoes. The poverty stricken father who makes the decision to “sell” his daughter. The uncle who suggests in the first place to gain the love of his employer’s wife. The complex familial relationships will keep you glued to the end to see if the two siblings are ever reunited. ~Ernie Hoyt

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad (Virago)

Asne Seierstad is a Norwegian journalist. In the fall of 2003, she spent three months in Afghanistan reporting for many Scandinavian newspapers. She first met Sultan Khan in November of that year. Sultan Khan (not his real name) is the owner of a bookstore in the Afghan capital of Kabul. He is The Bookseller of Kabul.

Seierstad had spent six weeks with the Northern Alliance “in the desert by the Tajikistani border, in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, in the Panshir Valley, and on the steppes north of Kabul”. She was following their offensive against the Taliban. She “slept on stone floor, in mud huts, and at the front, travelled on the back of lorries, in military vehicles, on horseback and on foot.” After the fall of the Taliban, she went to Kabul with the Northern Alliance where she discovered a small bookstore. 

Seierstad became a regular visitor to the bookshop and enjoyed browsing for books and talking to the proprietor, an Afghan man who says he felt let down by his country time and again. She listened to him talk about running his bookshop before, during and after the reign of the Taliban. “First the Communists burnt my books, then the Mujahadeen looted and pillaged, finally the Taliban burnt them all over again.”

Talking with Sultan Khan gives Seierstad the idea of how interesting it would be to write about his family. She makes the proposal and at the beginning of February, she spends four months living with the family. As a woman, she was able to get close to the female members of the family and as a Westerner she was able to move freely amongst the men and women of the family. 

Seierstad says, “If I were to live in a typical Afghan family it would have been with a family in the countryside, a large family where no one could read or write, and every day was a battle for survival.”  

Seierstad reminds the reader that she didn’t pick this family to represent the average Afghani household. It is about one Afghan family, one that would be considered middle-class by Western standards as many of the children were educated, most could read and write and they always had enough money so didn’t face the fear of starving. She chose them because they inspired her. 

After the publication of the book, Suraia Rais, the second wife of Shah Muhammad Rais,the real-life Sultan Khan, sued Seierstad for defamation of character. At first, the courts rule in favor of Rais but Seierstad appealed the ruling and after an eight year legal battle, the Norwegian Supreme Court overturned the lower court's ruling citing “the family was well aware of the nature of the book project” adding that Seierstad was found “not to have acted negligently, and the content of the book was essentially deemed true.” 

It appears the family were unhappy with the way they were portrayed. Sultan Khan was portrayed as a dictatorial patriarch whose word is law and his second wife probably didn’t enjoy being described as spoiled and entitled. As a journalist, Seierstad manages to be objective about her subjects, she says “the manner in which they were portrayed was not “ideal” but she represented the family in a “respectful” way. 

She praises Rais for selling his books when it was dangerous to do so and believes he is an Afghan hero but says he is also an Afghan patriarch and one of the things that continued to irritate her was “the manner in which men treated women. The belief in man’s superiority was so ingrained that it was seldom questioned.” 

I also believe that Sultan Khan, Shah Muhammad Rais is a hero. As someone who promotes reading and education, he and his customers will be the future of Afghanistan. I only hope that peace and stability will one day come to their country. ~Ernie Hoyt

Above Us the Milky Way by Fowzia Karimi (Deep Vellum Publishing)

Near the end of 2020, a bookseller pulled this book from a shelf and showed it to me. Everything about it was beautiful: the gold dots on a deep blue unjacketed cover, the weight of the paper as I leafed through its pages, its typeface, the way that it used photographs and drawings in a way that seemed part of its text. I turned back when I was two miles away from the bookstore and brought it home, with no real sense of what it was about. I wasn’t even sure that I would ever read it, but the sight of it on my table made me happy.

Two weeks ago I picked it up and began to read, an experience so weighted and rich, so rooted in horror and loveliness that I made my way through it slowly, every day. When I finished it, I pressed it hard against my chest in an involuntary gesture that wasn’t a hug; it was an attempt to make it part of me in a physical way, as it had already claimed my heart and my imagination.

Is this a novel? Is it a memoir? Fowzia Karimi teases with those questions, claiming it is neither one. It is, the subtitle says, An Illuminated Alphabet, one that Karimi says should be read in a random way, not as a linear narrative. Within the order of the alphabet, each letter forming its own chapter, an illumination casts its beam upon the magic of childhood and the cruelty of war, upon the nature of memory--where it lives and how it is revealed--upon the way in which lives are lived in two places at the same time. 

If there is a narrative, it’s circular, tracing the journey of a family with five daughters who left Afghanistan for the United States when the girls were quite young. But there is no arc, no resolution, no named characters. There’s Father, Mother, the sisters, and a multitude of family members who were left behind, living and dead. 

In their new country, the sisters are one as much as they are five: the sister who sleeps, the sister who walks through the night, the sister who dreams, ths sister who gives, the sister who who loves the sea. Their faces are seen only dimly in family snapshots; in drawings of them only the back of their heads are given. Karimi herself, in her author photo, shows only the back of her head and shoulders. And yet through their memories and their dreams, the games that they play and the chores that they do, they become visible, girls who are both wild creatures, exemplary daughters, creative beings, and nomads by blood and through practice. 

Anchored by stories and memories, the family lives outside of the present because they know they could return to their first country at any moment.  They have no future because the war has devoured everything they’d known in the past. They live “between what had been and what might have been.” 

What they know about the events within the country they no longer live in is terrible. The stories of the dead live within the sisters: those who were buried alive in pits, those whose bodies were tortured, those who were cut in half by gunfire. The girls know and live with these histories that co-mingle with their memories of balloon-sellers, fruit vendors, festive birthdays with tribes of cousins back in their first country.

Karimi’s goal is to “explore the correspondence on the page between the written and the visual arts.” Her small paintings bring objects into the text: a butterfly on one page, a severed finger on another, all rendered with the careful lovely attention of a botanical drawing. Like signposts, they keep readers from growing numb. They and the words that they accompany keep us awake, keep us alive, keep us connected to what we might not ever know, what we might prefer to ignore; the complex and knowledgeable life of children, the bright and bloody history of a country that has long lived with “fire in the sky, limbs in the trees, blood in the streets.”~Janet Brown