The Submission

The Submission has been described like a Bonfire of the Vanities for our time. You can see where the comparisons lie. However, while Bonfire of the Vanities is a wry satire on high society, The Submission is overwrought earnest and filled with high emotion.

And this is no bad thing. Not at all. In fact, that's where its strengths lie. In its ability to translate a multitude of characters with a multitude of emotions into a cohesive hole that talks about nation, identity, race, grief and social status.

The Submission follows in the wake of 9/11. A committee, including wife of a 9/11 victim Clare, meet to choose the winning submission for a competition to design a suitable memorial to commemorate the victims of 9/11. Once Clare's favourite is chosen, a poignant garden, the entrant's identity is revealed. It is a Muslim. A Muslim man with a generically Muslim name, Mohammad Khan.

What follows is an exploration of the fallout of this selection: from Khan's careerist architect trying to first define himself as an American and then as a Muslim; to Clare's tangled life of frustration, grief and pain, mixed with the need to move on; to the political machinations of Paul Reuben, who heads up the committee, trying to make Khan leave the process, to save political face; to Sean, the angry brother of a dead firefighter who leads the campaign against Khan and against Islam, and who sees a fire burning in Clare similar to himself.

The Submission walks a fine line between melodrama and emotional powerhouse and manages to succeed through the strength of its characters and what they represent. What emerges is a book that is about the human condition as much as it is about the collective national identity of grief.