CONVICTION

Good intentions pave the way to devastating results for a youthful believer (and those she loves).

Maggie, a young girl from Maine, initially reacts to the events of 9/11 with hatred for Islam. After her parents bring her to an open house at a mosque in Orono, hatred for becomes interest in, and then adherence to, the religion. Gradually, Maggie becomes an ardent practitioner of the version of Islam to which she’s been introduced, though she prays in private and doesn’t wear the hijab. Upon moving to New York City and becoming more aware of the atrocities faced by fellow Muslims at the hands of the Assad regime in Syria, Maggie becomes romantically involved with Ahmet, an idealistic young Muslim engineering student and son of Sirvan, an Iraqi Kurd who owns the bakery where she works. Despite a warning from Sirvan about allowing Ahmet’s passions to lead her into “trouble,” Maggie eventually follows Ahmet across the globe to Syria, and to a growing and horrified realization that ISIS, the group to which Ahmet has idealistically attached himself, subscribes to a very different version of Islam than the one she believes in. Winthrop interweaves Maggie’s experiences with those of her widowed mother, Ann, in a taut narrative of fear and loss. Limited communication between the two heightens the sense of Ann’s terror and frustration over her daughter’s self-created exile to a war-torn and violent region. Maggie’s recalculation of the factors leading her to Syria in anticipation of a coming utopian caliphate is painful and introduces challenges to her relationship with Ahmet. Winthrop has created a virtual world of intense emotional—and, often, physical—pain for her characters. Demonstrating that the personal is the political, Winthrop’s narrative conveys domestic as well as global suffering with equal gravitas.

Eminently discussable and brutally revelatory.