Phil Santiago

This book has an interesting conceit in that Diaz can escape accusations of overwriting the first part, because the author of that piece is a different character. And he can escape accusations of submitting half-finished work, because there's an in-universe reason for that. And he can escape accusations of engaging in weird conspiratorial fantasy about the Great Depression, because Obama takes him seriously.

Anyway, the third part was probably my favorite in that this is the actual plot. But I probably would have been satisfied with an entire book written like the first part? Seemed like he was channeling Ann Patchett there.

The Satanic Verses threatened to be a bad time with an impenetrable plot. Were the two characters introduced in the plane crash literal angels and demons or was this some overstuffed metaphor? Was the whole book an exercise in Rushdie's linguistics gymnastics at the expense of a solid story? It turned out that Rushdie had plotted something compelling and once I was able to progress through the experiences of Gibreel and Saladin, I came to appreciate all the context that the language imbues in what we can call the "A" plot.

Verses is a story about cultural history and the narrative it bestows upon each of us and is particularly a look at how immigrants are perceived. It's about the herculean amount of mental energy it takes to actualize yourself and it's also about how the powerful will bend the narrative to suit themselves. My favorite chapter was one I would have written off in the first third as yet another set-aside short story built to waste my time. But following the village on a pilgrimage rife with doubt, compelled by groupthink and ultimately engulfed in faith was a pretty beautiful echo of the main plot.

The go-to for these types of memoirs is witty, but Komail's prose truly integrates a sharp wit within a compelling life story that has incisive commentary on multiple cultures. The writing is just *good.*