The Blind Assassin opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura?s story, Atw...more
“A beautiful and majestic fictional panorama.” --John Updike, The New Yorker“Flat-out brilliant. . . . Lush, detailed, vibrantly colored and intense.” –San Francisco Chronicle“A tour de force. . . . Every bit as affecting as it is gripping.” --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times“Luminous. . . . Ato...more
An Arab and a Jew open a restaurant together across the street from the United Nations....It sounds like the beginning of an ethnic joke, but it's the axis around which spins this gutsy, fun-loving, and alarmingly provocative novel, in which a bean can philosophizes, a dessert spoon mystifies, a young waitress takes on the New York art world, and a...more