The Submission

A jury gathers in Manhattan to select a memorial for the victims of a devastating terrorist attack. Their fraught deliberations complete, the jurors open the envelope containing the anonymous winner’s name—and discover he is an American Muslim named Mohammad Khan. Instantly, they are cast into a roiling debate about the claims of grief, the ambiguities of art and the meaning of Islam.

Khan’s fiercest defender is the jury’s sole widow—the self-possessed and mediagenic Claire Burwell. As news of Khan’s selection spreads, Claire finds herself under attack from outraged family members, story-hungry journalists, wary activists, opportunistic politicians and Khan himself. All will bring the emotional weight of their own histories to bear on the urgent question of how to remember, and understand, a national tragedy.

A striking portrait of a fractured city striving to make itself whole, The Submission is a piercing and resonant novel by an important new talent.