The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas

The True American tells the story of Raisuddin Bhuiyan, a Bangladesh Air Force officer who dreams of immigrating to America and working in technology. But days after 9/11, an avowed American terrorist named Mark Stroman, seeking revenge, walks into the Dallas minimart where Bhuiyan has found temporary work and shoots him, maiming and nearly killing him. Two more victims, at other gas stations, die instantly.

The True American traces the making of these two men, Stroman and Bhuiyan, and of their fateful encounter. It follows them as they rebuild shattered lives--one striving on death row to become a better man, the other to heal and pull himself up from the lowest rung on the ladder of an unfamiliar country. Ten years after the shooting, an Islamic pilgrimage seeds in Bhuiyan a strange idea: if he is ever to be whole, he must reenter Stroman's life. He longs to confront Stroman and speak to him face to face about the attack that changed their lives. Bhuiyan publicly forgives Stroman, in the name of his religion and its notion of mercy. Then he wages a legal and public-relations campaign, against the state of Texas and Governor Rick Perry, to have his attacker spared from the death penalty.

Ranging from Texas's juvenile justice system to the swirling crowd of pilgrims at the Hajj in Mecca; from a biker bar to an immigrant mosque in Dallas; from young military cadets in Bangladesh to elite paratroopers in Israel; from a wealthy household of chicken importers in Karachi, Pakistan, to the sober residences of Brownwood, Texas, The True American is a rich, profoundly moving exploration of the American dream in its many dimensions. It helps us to consider our love-hate relationship with immigrants, the underpinnings of domestic terrorism, and how--or whether--we choose what we become.

Author: Anand Giridharadas
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 04/06/2015
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780393350791


Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 04/26/2015 pg. 28

About the Author
Giridharadas, Anand: - Anand Giridharadas is a writer, on-air political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, and a visiting scholar at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. He is the author of India Calling, The True American, and Winners Take All. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Priya Parker, and two children.