It highlights the way that so many of the things we take as givens-like enmity between Jews and Muslims, or the primacy of the USA-are not fixed, but nor are they historical accidents. The parallel world of The Mirage has no such turning point, which is keen on Ruff’s part. The alternate history genre typically explores what-ifs, worlds in which Lee won at Gettysburg or Caesar Augustus discovered gunpowder. Meanwhile bin Laden is a drag as the antagonist-a bummer in any dimension.
The greatest feeling of whizz-bang invention comes when, as the novel plummets through plot, we meet twisted versions of famous figures: Senator Osama bin Laden, Governor Muammar al Gaddafi, and-the book’s MVP-a charmingly roguish Saddam Hussein, who enlivens the proceedings immensely as a Gotti-esque mobster, bringing unpredictable charm to every scene he’s in. ), there’s a gratuitous clunker, like the fact that all the American militants sport Revolutionary era tri-cornered hats (something familiar, like baseball caps, would have been more appropriate and unsettling). It takes time for the sick joke to sink in, to remember exactly why we know names like Fallujah and Sadr City by heart.īut for every cutting jab, like the way Mustafa and Samir always confuse the dizzying variety of warring American Christian sects (Baptists, Pentecostals, Mormons, Episcopalians. For instance, it’s surprising how familiar the names of Iraqi cities and Baghdad neighborhoods are to the average, news-reading American. The novel’s satiric elements range from right on target to patently surreal. The Christian terrorists believe that, if they kill enough Muslims with their suicide bombs, the veil that conceals this true world will be lifted and the righteous will ascend. The agents are brought in to investigate strange chatter in the ranks of the terrorist “Crusaders”: rumors of another world, one in which America is the real superpower and the Arab countries nothing but petro-dictatorships. Yet there’s far more fun to be had here in exploring the book’s looking-glass world. If you’ve ever read a book you bought off an airport rack, then you can guess how this will go-each cop carries a dark, compromising secret that will come to light at a critical moment. There’s Mustafa, the dutiful protagonist haunted by the death of his wife on 11/9, sardonic and secretive partner Amir, and feminist rookie agent Amal. It moves as quickly as anything by Tom Clancy, shoving its team of Arab Homeland Security agents into a violent hostage situation from the starting gun. To explore this topsy-turvy world, the novel takes the mode of an espionage thriller. Nine years after the November 9th attacks, an Arab occupation of the Eastern seaboard has become a quagmire, with mounting casualties and no end in sight. In this politically charged alternate history, the United Arab States are locked into a global war against radical Christian terrorism.
#Mirage of twin mirror world windows#
Sunrise in Baghdad is at 6:25, and as the first rays strike the Tigris and Euphrates twin towers, an old man stands in the main dining room of the Windows on the World restaurant, gazing out at the city.Īnd so, with the aplomb of a diving 767, Matt Ruff introduces the premise of his new novel, The Mirage.
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