Johnny Jihad
Inspired by the experiences of John Walker Lindh and the Columbine shootings, this exploration of our culture's casual acceptance of violence and the emptiness of lower middle-class life concerns young martyr-in-training John Sendel. The story opens as he's about to die in an American bombing run in Afghanistan. A flashback to the early 1990s shows Sendel as an unhappy suburbanite with a nowhere job, an abusive, ex-military dad, and a remote, drug-dependent mom. He drifts through life until a colleague shows him the Koran and introduces him to an Islamic activist group. The group runs a terrorist training camp, providing a different kind of family for Sendel, and its anti-American teachings offer a purpose for his life and an easy explanation for his social desperation. Sendel sleepwalks through his Islamist indoctrination before agreeing to murder an American Imam. Once the police and CIA catch him, they offer Sendel a deal: go to Afghanistan and spy on the Taliban's activities. Inzana offers a moody tale of emotional emptiness and the perverse attractions of a pathologic cult-community as a basis for understanding Lindh's experiences. His b&w; expressionist art appears to be done with scratchboard and is a striking vehicle for a story about individual self-invention that collapses into self-destruction. Although starkly engaging and powerful, Inzana's story is also melodramatic, clumsy and implausible, as he grasps for simple social or cultural reasons for Sendel's blindness to the logical and moral consequences of pernicious acts. Despite its flaws, however, Inzana has produced a bold fictional investigation into the roots of political fanaticism.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.