The other characters come off no better. Call central casting for a freckled, light-skinned Irish-American woman with green eyes and red hair and you've got Teresa Mulloy. Likewise, Levy is typecast enough that he would fit right in on almost any television sitcom about a large high school. Virtually every Muslim in the story is involved in the terror plot. The only two Afro-American characters are Joryleen and her boyfriend Tylenol, so named because his mother "saw the name in a television commercial for painkiller and liked the sound of it." And what careers do they pursue after graduation? Prostitute and pimp.
If these almost racially insensitive categorizations weren't enough, there are machinations aplenty to tie the last sentence of the book to one of the first. The plot resolution boggles the mind. It consists of a far-fetched chain of events, each of which causes the reader to raise an eyebrow even further at the extent of the implausibility.
Updike's concept of exploring post-9/11 American via a "homegrown" American terrorist is worthwhile. Its execution, however, causes this rather slow-paced and deliberate thriller to fail. Regardless of how much the world of letters seems to burn for that post-9/11 canon, Terrorist is further evidence that any such canon currently is, and remains, extremely weak.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - -E
Congrats! This article has been selected as one of this week’s Editors’ Picks.
3 - Amilina
About the book "Terrorist" by John Updike:
We've read the book in our class and it was the stupiest book I've had ever read. This book stole my whole happiness and if I mustn't read the book to the end, I would have stopped after the first page. It was so horrible. Maybe your other books are better than that, and I really hope so. Don't ever let me read this book again. Please!
Thanks for listening.
Greetings
Amilina *kiss*
4 - Filipe
Dear Mr. Updike,
We read your book in our English lesson. At first, our teacher forced us to read it, but every one of us learned to love it. It was not easy to understand, because the inner monolog is very complex. My class and me are no native speakers, so we learned a lot of vocabulary.
We strongly recommend your book for every student, who tries to learn something about the possible action in Islamic circles.
Your Filipe
5 - J&N
Hello, we have read the book "Terrorist" written by John Updike.Now we want to tell you our impressions about the story.
We cannot recommend the book, because it`s boring and it`s difficult to understand it for german people because there are a lot of religious words which are difficult to understand.
In our opinion the book is not good!!!
Nice Greets
byebyeee Nadine&Julia
6 - Amad Khairzada
Hi my fellow "terrorist"- readers,
I just finished the novel, and i must admit that it is highly recommendable for everyone, although it is NOT representitive for any muslim community, neither in the US nor in Europe.
I consider it as very important to become more aware for issues going on in our western- society, but we also must be aware of the fact, that among a billion peace- loving muslims there might be only one black sheep, a potential "terrorist".
Once again, my congratulations to mr Updike for this brilliant work.
best wishes from my wonderful adopted country,
Germany