Homeland Elegies

Akhtar pulls you in with his very first sentences—intellectual and political, but flowing with the energy and intimacy of friendly conversation—and you are off on a ride through post-9/11 America, as lived by one man—like Akhtar the son of Pakistani immigrants and like Akhtar a Pulitzer-winning playwright, although the book is fiction. His father is an America-embracing, Trump-friendly cardiologist/failed businessman; his new best friend (for a time) is a hedge-fund billionaire pouring his money into positive PR for Islam. It's a marvelously complex, challenging, and companionable portrait of America, by one of its children.