QU'POOEY

John Updike takes us inside the head of a Muslim cliche monster

John Updike

Terrorist

You're Ahmad Ashwamy Mulloy, the would-be terrorist in John Updike's 22nd novel. You're prepared to eliminate a major target in New York City. It's all set. No Feds, no wiretapping, just a diesel truck chock full o' blast waiting for that button to be pressed. The virgins are waiting in the afterlife. Wrap it up, Ahmad.

You're miles away from your target, but you get caught. Turns out, your single mother has been sleeping with a married man, your former high school guidance counselor, whose wife's neurotic sister happens to be personal aide to the ... drumroll ... Secretary of Homeland Security! Is this how Washington runs things? Who told on Zarqawi, his cousin's girlfriend's uncle's dog's computer's ex-dermatologist?

Ahmad, before wanting to blow things up, is an 18-year-old half-Arab, half-Irish kid from New Prospect, New Jersey. Although his father, the Arab, ditched his family years ago, Ahmad and Islam are like peas and carrots. He loves his mother, sure, even though she's an infidel. He loves his local imam, Shiekh Rashid, much more, and spends a couple days a week studying the Qu'ran and talking shit about America with him.

After graduation - which the oft picked-on Ahmad is glad to leave behind - he skips higher education at the behest of the imam in favor of truck driving. Rashid gets him a job at a local Lebanese furniture delivery center. Ahmad gets along with the owner's son, Charlie, American history buff and jihadist extroadinare, and the two plot against the U.S./capitalism/tunnels/etc.

It's not that Ahmad, Rashid, Jack Levy (the guidance counselor), Beth (Jack's obese wife) and others are terribly dull. After all, it's hard for stereotyped robots to display emotion. Ahmad only shows a few moments of humanity; otherwise, he serves as the 75-year-old Updike's mouthpiece to show off what he's learned about Islam. Rashid, the "master," seems to eat evil for breakfast; Levy's your depressed, self-loathing Jew; Beth's a soap opera-lovin' whale because her husband's a depressed, self-loathing Jew. Luigi the pizza guy and Jacques, the gay pretentious Parisian artist with the fluffy beret, appear to have missed the cut, but I'm sure they'll find a place in Updike's next novel, People Are Silly and Smelly.

What's going on here? As obvious a suggestion as it sounds, Updike most likely has stepped out of his arena. He did extensive research on Islam, yes, but it seems to come at the expense of plot and character development, the latter of which has always been his strong suit. An 18-year-old Muslim boy is a far cry from middling, suburban Rabbit Angstrom character that Updike made his name on, and Rabbit, Run is a far cry from this half-baked thriller.

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