Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Khan relates the journey he and his family undertook from Pakistan to America. He tells of separations and sacrifice to achieve the goal supporting his family and living in freedom. The oldest child of Pakistani farmers, Khan worked hard to become a lawyer in Pakistan. During that time, he became intrigued by the U.S. Constitution. The Khans settled in Texas and Khan eventually attended Harvard. The couple had three sons, one of whom entered the U.S. Army after serving in ROTC through college. Humayun Khan became a captain and was killed while serving in Iraq in 2004. Khan eloquently paints a picture of a parent's grief and the measures the family took to cope with that loss. The Khans, Khizr and his wife, Ghazala, were asked to speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2016. Long an admirer of Ronald Reagan and John McCain, Khan accepted the invitation. As head of a patriotic American Muslim family, Khan expressed his unhappiness with the current divisiveness of the United States and his hope that Americans would revere and honor the Constitution, promising freedom of religion and of speech. -VERDICT This thoughtful book is an excellent read for anyone concerned about the increasing polarization of America. ["Khan's depiction of his family's loss serves as a poignant reminder of what military families sacrifice in service to their country, which the Khans have done with -exemplary stoicism and grace": LJ 10/15/17 review of the Random hc.]-Cheryl Youse, Norman Park, GA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
Khan, a Pakistani-American immigrant whose 2016 Democratic National Convention speech condemned Donald Trump for his treatment of Muslim Americans, reveals more about his family, including the life and death of his son Humayun, a U.S. army captain killed in Iraq. Khan's voice is steady throughout the book, though there are moments-not only when describing the death of his son, but also early on when recounting his sorrow at being separated from his parents as a boy, or the joy of first discovering the U.S. Constitution-when he is audibly overcome by emotion. (That's true for listeners as well; many will be hard-pressed to get to the end of this beautiful memoir without crying.) There are also unexpected moments of wry humor throughout, and Khan proves himself to have a skill for comic timing, like when he quips, "There had been no sexual revolution in Pakistan," after describing his cluelessness at how to court the woman whom he would eventually marry. This moving memoir is made all the more powerful when heard in the voice of the author. A Random House hardcover. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
As a young law student in a small Pakistani city, Khan, a son of farmers, had already been smitten by the principles of the U.S. Constitution. But even he could never have imagined that his moment in the limelight would come when he openly challenged presidential candidate Donald Trump about his proposed Muslim ban at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Khan's wide-eyed and eloquent memoir traces his family's history from the subcontinent to American citizenship and the tragic loss of his son, Captain Humayun Khan, in Iraq. A sense of wonder about America's promise peppers the entire narrative, even as he recounts his early struggles in the country while supporting his wife and three boys. Khan's rose-colored glasses occasionally camouflage the harsher aspects of the immigrant narrative. So while he hints at wife Ghazala's loneliness, especially after their son's death, his memoir is focused on one sunny goal: the Khan family's enthusiastic embrace of the American dream. This account is especially resonant now that we know where the family moved after their loss: Charlottesville, Virginia. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Much attention will be paid to this memoir by the Muslim American Gold Star father who galvanized the country at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.--Apte, Poornima Copyright 2017 Booklist
Kirkus Book Review
A politically pointed immigrant success story mingled with equally pointed tragedy.A native of Pakistan, Khan thought of America as a land of cowboyswhen, that is, he thought of anything other than enduring homegrown oppression. "If you have lived half of your life under martial law and the rest in a swirl of political chaos," he writes meaningfully, "Western ideals aren't readily in your orbit." Those ideals came to him in the form of an encounter with the Declaration of Independence and its profession of equality and inalienable rights. He found his way to America and Harvard Law, reveling in the civil order that he found nothing short of marvelous while rediscovering the Islam of his birth in its tolerant mode, not the "brutal theocracy" that interpreted the religion back home. Khan, in short, charts the nuanced evolution of an American patriot, one whose son was killed by a car bomb while serving as an Army officer in Iraq. Capt. Humayan Saqib Muazzam Khan was proclaimed a hero and posthumously earned the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for bravery in combat, to which his father characteristically adds a small wrinkle: "My son was dead because he was trying to make sure a stranger wasn't killed by mistake. He stayed true to the shape of his heart." So, it seems, did the father, who became an earnest critic of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, berating him for his anti-immigrant agitation and his penchant for "stirring the worst of human nature." All those credentials, of course, explain why Khan was asked to speak at the Democratic National Convention, introduced by his son's hero, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and elevated to national attention in the bargain. Self-effacing, the author writes movingly of the events leading up to that moment, which he feared, correctly, might expose him to direct attack on the part of Trump himself. Khan's aspirational memoir reminds us all why Americans should welcome newcomers from all lands. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.