This novel, which made its debut just a few months ago, has already received huge amounts of praise. Indeed, in the review that ultimately persuaded me to read it the writer hailed it as the best depiction of the post-9/11 environment in America that has been seen in the decade since the attack. Now having read the book myself (though certainly not having read all of the other texts in contention for that particular article's praise), I can say that in many ways, I agree.
The Submission follows the lives of a handful of characters during the much-publicized debate over how to best memorialize the former site of the World Trade Center. It takes place approximately two years after the dust has settled, but tempers and fears are still at an escalated level, to say the least. In the opening chapters, we see a jury of various intellectuals and experts attempt to narrow down the candidates for a design and select a winner from thousands of anonymous submissions. We meet Claire Burwell, a 9/11 widow who has been given the nearly impossible task of representing all the men and women who lost loved ones that day. She advocates heartily for a beautiful design that she feels will best embody a message of both remembrance and healing, and manages to capture the necessary votes to declare it the winner.
Of course, the story is far from over. The winning design is revealed to have been dreamed up by an American Muslim man living in New York. Mohammed Kahn is as talented and insightful as he is disagreeable and arrogant. And if that weren't difficulty enough, the news breaks to the press that a Muslim designer has been selected to memorialize the terrorist attack victims, igniting a sprawling and fiery backlash from many corners. We as readers are provided a vivid account of each player's psyche, and each seems to have something valid to offer, from Kahn to Claire (who now has to defend him to the enraged families she is meant to represent), to a grieving protest leader, to a frightened immigrant husband who lost her husband in the attack but has not been given the right to acknowledge her grief.
As the debate descends into a state of publicity-fueled mayhem, each page offers more and more to consider. Here in 2011, ten years after that awful day, we have been able to soothe some of our anger, and rationality has largely returned. It is thus the perfect time to take our patchy attitudes of tolerance and turn them on their heads, to make us question our own values, and most importantly, try to imagine what stance we would take in such an impossible situation. At first it seems obvious: the designer who won should be allowed to design the memorial, no question about it. But as more and more of the story is revealed, as character's truest beliefs and motives come to life, a black-and-white question becomes more and more colored in shades of grey. And as someone who just six weeks ago was bombarded with the myriad TV specials and newspaper articles commemorating the attacks' anniversary, I think shades of grey might just be the most accurate way to truly summarize this nation's collective feelings about and understanding of what we went through that day, and what it meant.
If there is anything to criticize about this book, it is that the prose itself seems a bit awkward at times, almost as though Waldman didn't consider how it might sound read aloud or how it might be better phrased to prevent the reader from having to stop and start while trucking through dense paragraphs. Waldman lucks out, though, because the narrative itself is compelling enough to prompt the reader to plow through the rougher bits. The characters may be clumsily depicted at certain moments, but looking at the vibrancy of the broad strokes allows for a much better picture.
And the final thing I'll say about this book is something I almost never say about any book: I think this should be adapted into a film. I am usually against books being made into films, primarily because so many beloved stories have been butchered by the Hollywood treatment. However, I think if this book were allowed to become a thoughtful, honest film, it would do a lot of good. This is primarily because (as judgmental as it might sound), the people to whom this book's message can teach the most are not necessarily the people I envision picking it up at their local bookshop (assuming said bookshop hasn't bankrupted and closed yet). I hate to admit it, but if this were presented visually, with an attractive/recognizable cast and a script which smooths over the flaws in Waldman's writing, we could have a genuinely compelling, intellectually and culturally important film on our hands.
I think I understand now, having read it, why that article named this book as the best representation of 9/11's aftermath. It doesn't seek to sentimentalize anything or take advantage of the reader's emotional connection to the event to tell the story; it simply tells the story from a few narrow viewpoints, and manages to bring you back to that moment in our history without invoking any of the actual imagery that has been so imprinted in our minds. Waldman speaks not from a soapbox but from the middle of a diverse crowd, offering snapshots of ordinary people dealing with extraordinary circumstances, and attempting to navigate them as ethically as they know how.
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