Just as my characters went on a road trip, I too took a journey for this novel. Along the way I was helped by many people offering guideposts and insight into the complicated, fragile landscape of immigration and asylum law. While I have done my best to honor the reality of immigration policies, this is a work of fiction that aims to get at the essence of an imagined story.
This story originated one day when I was riding a subway in Brooklyn and a vision of Rania appeared right before me: black hair, black combat boots, a ferocious teenage poet wanting to gulp in the city. Soon after, I was standing under the slanted ceilings of Bnai Keshet in Montclair, observing congregants figure out how to make the space into a sanctuary.
That summer, I left for a residency at VCCA Moulin a Nèf, in Auvillar, France, where, the very first night, I stumbled upon an albergues—a welcoming hostel for pilgrims who walk the Camino de Santiago.
This book was born out of that spirit of pilgrimage and sanctuary, marking the third novel I have written exploring the post-9/11 experience for immigrant and especially Muslim teenagers. When Rania stands before the Brooklyn Bridge, she invokes the spirit of Walt Whitman, who keenly understood the transformative possibilities of America, which has always been changed and replenished by each new, surging wave of people.
Two significant backdrops also inform this story: the draconian immigration policies instituted in the US in 2018, when asylum-seeking families were separated at the border, and the ICE crackdowns and dragnet sweeps that became a regular, terrifying occurrence for immigrants. The other backdrop is the increasing authoritarianism, suppression, and censorship of journalists in many countries. At the time of Abu’s “disappearance,” violence and murder of journalists in Pakistan was at an all-time high. Today, throughout the world, journalists are imperiled for doing their job by reporting the truth. It is to them I—and all of us—are forever indebted.