Parveen, the protagonist in this audiobook, is a newly minted college graduate eager to make a difference. Inspired by a flawed American philanthropist, she takes her idealism to the land of her birth: Afghanistan. Roxanne Radja's narration is an understated one. Her voice is consistently gentle and calm, exuding a steadying influence even as characters in the novel endure hardship. Once the story is underway, her delivery is easy to follow and enjoyable to hear. There are narrative sections, however, when the exposition slows down the plot, and Radja's measured calm becomes a bit too quiet. Nonetheless, her performance is appealing, and the audiobook offers a fascinating take on questions of morality and the line between helping others and controlling them. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
A Door in the Earth
Narrated by Roxanna Hope Radja
Amy WaldmanUnabridged — 12 hours, 34 minutes
A Door in the Earth
Narrated by Roxanna Hope Radja
Amy WaldmanUnabridged — 12 hours, 34 minutes
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Overview
Parveen Shams, a college senior in search of a calling, feels pulled between her charismatic and mercurial anthropology professor and the comfortable but predictable Afghan-American community in her Northern California hometown. When she discovers a bestselling book called Mother Afghanistan, a memoir by humanitarian Gideon Crane that has become a bible for American engagement in the country, she is inspired. Galvanized by Crane's experience, Parveen travels to a remote village in the land of her birth to join the work of his charitable foundation.
When she arrives, however, Crane's maternity clinic, while grandly equipped, is mostly unstaffed. The villagers do not exhibit the gratitude she expected to receive. And Crane's memoir appears to be littered with mistakes, or outright fabrications. As the reasons for Parveen's pilgrimage crumble beneath her, the U.S. military, also drawn by Crane's book, turns up to pave the solde road to the village, bringing the war in their wake. When a fatal ambush occurs, Parveen must decide whether her loyalties lie with the villagers or the soldiers -- and she must determine her own relationship to the truth.
Amy Waldman, who reported from Afghanistan for the New York Times after 9/11, has created a taut, propulsive novel about power, perspective, and idealism, brushing aside the dust of America's longest-standing war to reveal the complicated truths beneath. A Door in the Earth is the rarest of books, one that helps us understand living history through poignant characters and unforgettable storytelling.
Editorial Reviews
08/05/2019
Waldman’s potent novel (after The Submission) follows Parveen Shamsa, freshly out of college and inspired by Mother Afghanistan, a memoir written by an American ophthalmologist named Gideon Crane recounting his time working in remote Afghanistan, as she sets out to retrace Crane’s footsteps. Armed with a grant from UC Berkeley and introductions to Crane’s old host, Waheed, Parveen, an Afghan-American from Northern California, heads for the maternity clinic Crane built for the village, intent on reconnecting with her Afghan heritage and actualizing her idealism. Reality, however, is far more complicated than Crane’s palatable account: without a doctor, the clinic is a hollow shell, and Crane’s meddling did little more than throw the lives of locals into chaos. When a detachment of U.S. Army engineers begin construction on a road to the village—a PR play inspired by the clinic’s fame—the convenient fantasy constructed by Mother Afghanistan comes into direct conflict with the messy realities of war. Waldman, a former reporter for the New York Times out of Kabul, paints a blistering portrayal of the misguided aspirations and convenient lies that have fed the war in Afghanistan. This is an impressive novel. Agent: Bill Clegg, the Clegg Agency. (Aug.)
"A teeming panoply...layers moving storytelling onto penetrating reportage...Waldman is particularly gifted at giving tangible reality to ethical dilemmas...Few contemporary authors have shown so expertly that well-intentioned intervention can be the most dangerous kind of all."—Lara Feigel, New York Times Book Review
"Waldman has crafted a story that doesn't shrink from moral ambiguity and difficult questions."—Joumana Khatib, New York Times
"In her illuminating second novel, Waldman unpeels layers of cultural conditioning to explore the American use of 'kind power.'"—BBC
"Amy Waldman's penetrating second novel speaks truth to power."—Leigh Haber, O, The Oprah Magazine
"Waldman writes about the clash of cultures and ideals with clean-lined grace and quiet eye-level empathy."—Entertainment Weekly
"Waldman's characters are fully realized individuals, as morally complex as the choices facing them...Waldman is that rare novelist who writes from both the head and heart, combining high moral seriousness with moments of irony and humor. In A Door in the Earth, she has created a novel as moving as it is provocative."—Elizabeth Toohey, Christian Science Monitor
"Waldman delivers a breathtaking and achingly nuanced examination of the grays in a landscape where black and white answers have long been the only currency. A bone-chilling takedown of America's misguided use of soft power."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A deeply well-informed, utterly engrossing, mischievously disarming, and stealthily suspenseful tale...Every aspect of this complex and caustic tale of hype and harm is saturated with insight and ruefulness."—Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
"A Door in the Earth is a deeply chilling, multifaceted examination of not just the situation in Afghanistan but also the more pernicious and complex consequences of awakening the sleeping giant that is America."—Stephenie Harrison, Bookpage (starred review)
"Thrilling and brilliantly nuanced...The most stunning and supple novel of the season for anyone who wants to understand the larger world and our part in it...A Door in the Earth brings The Quiet American into a new millennial generation."—Pico Iyer, bestselling author of The Art of Stillness and The Open Road
"Waldman's moral vision, spare and unsparing prose style, and feel for the way history upsets settled lives all make A Door in the Earth one of the essential books of the post-9/11 era."—George Packer, National Book Award winner for The Unwinding
"Amy Waldman brings her fierce intelligence and breathtaking descriptive powers to bear in this brilliant, unsentimental novel."—Nell Freudenberger, New York Times bestselling author of Lost and Wanted
"Some stories stick with you, becoming like your own memories. When I finished the last page of this book I could've sworn it had all happened to me."—Elliot Ackerman, National Book Award finalist for Dark at the Crossing
"Potent...Waldman paints a blistering portrayal of the misguided aspirations and convenient lies that have fed the war in Afghanistan. This is an impressive novel.—Publishers Weekly
★ 2019-05-27
A young Afghan American finds life in a remote Afghan village to be very different from the narrative she had been fed back home in this novel from a former New York Times Afghanistan correspondent.
Given that the U.S. has been keen to win the battle for hearts and minds in Afghanistan since 9/11, Americans will willingly lap up any story that sheds the U.S.-Afghanistan relationship in a positive light. Dr. Gideon Crane's wildly successful memoir, Mother Afghanistan, fits the bill. The (fictional) bestseller narrates the tale of Crane's efforts to do good in a poverty-stricken village. Crane's best intentions didn't amount to much as he helplessly watched Fereshta, a young mother, die from complications in childbirth. In a sweeping gesture of goodwill, years later, Crane built a hospital in the village in her honor, a monument that drew thousands of donations from well-meaning Americans trying to justify their country's actions. Parveen Shamsa, a newly minted college graduate, is drawn in by Crane's account and travels to the same village to exercise her medical anthropological skills and connect with her Afghan roots. To her dismay, Parveen finds gaping holes in Crane's narrative and slowly realizes that "the village was a backdrop against which Americans played out their fantasies of benevolence or self-transformation or, more recently, control." Worse, Crane's memoir also galvanizes the U.S. Army to deliver its own brand of feel-good medicine to the town, with unsurprisingly tragic consequences. Through a kaleidoscope of shifting perspectives—from Parveen's host family to the village elderman, the gynecologist who can only visit weekly, and the military top brass who bring the war to town—Waldman (The Submission, 2011) delivers a breathtaking and achingly nuanced examination of the grays in a landscape where black and white answers have long been the only currency.
A bone-chilling takedown of America's misguided use of soft power.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170371006 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Hachette Audio |
| Publication date: | 08/27/2019 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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