Budapest, Hungary - [Pick: Terrorist by John Updike] This author's twenty-second novel deserves you attention in the sun or by the ocean. But I warn you, it's a wierd read.
This is especially true if you get it before going to see the brand new movie by Oliver Stone about the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Mr. Updike is a much better writer than many of his critics presume. He tries to understand the unsavory characters. This feature is what distinguishes real novels from cheap books. It is easy to make heroes from the "good guys". But it is hard to understand the "bad" ones, especially the suicide bombers.
Mr. Updike is shockingly forthright and courageous. He takes as his subject not terrorism, but American consumerism so that ironically the best way of engaging the book is not to read, but just to purchase it. In the shadow of the recent airline chaos and terrorist threats, the reading of Terrorist can be a comforting and chilly pastime -- right after you reached the hotel healthy and bouncing, right after your safe (not cancelled, not delayed) flight...
But of course this is a most dangerous question in general to ask from a writer. It is even more dangerous when a writer of a small nation is asked, because his first instinct would be to mention one of his novels, hoping that it may result in a translation. My case is special. I do not need a translation right now -- The Book of Fathers, a large novel of mine, just came out in English this month (at Little Brown, London). It received a very early and very nice note in the Times. Still, suggesting your own book is tacky, forget it, I am sorry.
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