I'm Not Muhammad
"Jason Trask has written an unusually brave, intelligent, insightful and totally unexpected first novel. A bravura act of committed imagination, it transmutes the unimaginable into hard reality." --Francisco Goldman,The Long Night of White Chickens, The Ordinary Seaman, The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the ArchbishopandThe Divine Husband"Yusuf is a typical young American guy. Okay, so there's no typical American. Details vary. But if you squint to blur out the particulars such as all of Yusuf's stubbornnesses in his marriage to Ruth...wait a minute. That's typical, isn't it? Okay, so he's typical and we are going to be at his side as he is jerked into the devil's realm by...uh...shall we say other typical American guys? Rose-tinted glasses don't function here. This new all-American novel is in shades of hell.... It's a very, very important book. I hope it goes far and wide." --Carolyn Chute,The Beans of Egypt Maine, Letourneau's Used Auto Parts, Snow Man, Merry Men,andThe School on Heart's Content Road"Jason Trask's disarming novelI'm Not Muhammadis a brave hard look at dubious times. In crisp, clean prose, the author conjures up a seemingly ordinary world of marital discord before the canonical date of 9/11, only to suddenly pull the rug out from under the reader, compelling him to slide along with the bewildered protagonist into the whirlpool of extraordinary rendition. It'sAlice in Wonderlandmeets Kafka'sThe Trial, spiked with healthy helpings of the Marquis de Sade. The Beach Boys just went waterboarding. And they didn't have a good time." --Peter Wortsman, author ofA Modern Way to Die; translator ofPosthumous Papers of a Living Authorby Robert Musil andSelected Prose of Heinrich von KleistThis strong, well-developed first novel charts the plight of an Arab-American conflicted about his identity well before the government harassment of the post-9/11 world. --Publishers Weekly"Jason Trask's disarming novelI'm Not Muhammadis a brave hard look at dubious times. In crisp, clean prose, the author conjures up a seemingly ordinary world of marital discord before the canonical date of 9/11, only to suddenly pull the rug out from under the reader, compelling him to slide along with the bewildered protagonist into the whirlpool of extraordinary rendition. It'sAlice in Wonderlandmeets Kafka'sThe Trial, spiked with healthy helpings of the Marquis de Sade. The Beach Boys just went waterboarding. And they didn't have a good time." --Peter Wortsman, author ofA Modern Way to Die; translator ofPosthumous Papers of a Living Authorby Robert Musil andSelected Prose of Heinrich von Kleist