I inhaled this book over the course of one afternoon. Masood balances the intertwining narratives of a relatively-privileged Pakistani immigrant and the far more painful story of a young woman fleeing war-torn Iraq, and through both of these stories, he weaves in one perfectly-rendered detail of life as an immigrant in modern America after another. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, when it isn’t both at once.
Skinless men crawl from fissures in the coal-seamed earth. A nameless monster, half deer and half... something else, stalks the woods. And two queer teens try desperately to remember something that the whole of their quiet little town wants them to forget. Terrifying, tender, and heartbreaking in equal measure, Machado’s latest is a gorgeously illustrated testament to her mastery of the macabre.
The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War--a Tragedy in Three Acts (Hardcover)
Anderson calls the history of the CIA’s early years “a tragedy in three acts,” and by the time I finished this incredibly well-crafted work, I could not have agreed more. Masterfully blending the stories of four men who were instrumental in the agency’s founding with an overarching narrative about the missed opportunities and failures of American foreign policy after the end of World War II, this tragedy is a must-read.