At once an intimate portrait of a group of young Arab Muslims living in the United States, and the story of one Algerian immigrant's journey intoand out ofviolence...It compels us to question the questions it raises: Who are the terrorists? Can we recognize them? How do they live? [Knopf]
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
The term ''terrorist cell'' has a chilly, clinical ring that keeps it divorced from the ambiguous, messy everyday lives we all live. In this outstanding novel, Adams decisively reestablishes the connection.
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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
One of America's oldest stories, the immigrant adventure, is magically new in this stunning debut about Algerians in Boston.
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Outstanding
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Los Angeles Times Mark Rozzo
Her mesmerizing first novel is told with the kind of persuasive detail you associate with top-shelf investigative journalism. It's also a ripping read: Its narrative sweeps along like a Sunday-night TV drama.
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Adams's lucid, psychologically complicated page-turner captures the ambiguities of and raises important questions about the domestic war on terror.
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Outstanding
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The New York Times Book Review Neil Gordon
What's harder to explain is how Adams is able to draw us so convincingly into the lived reality of her ensemble cast, a skill that derives less from the craft of journalism than from the art of fiction. These characters are the product of a virtuoso act of the imagination.
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Outstanding
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The Observer Hephzibah Anderson
It's [Adams'] luminescent prose that transforms this tale. Pacy and compact, its faraway lilt imitates immigrant English, a language both broken and beautiful.
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Outstanding
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Daily Telegraph Elena Seymenliyska
Demonstrates solid research and deep understanding of her subject, which she presents with objectivity and compassion.
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Favorable
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Booklist Debi Lewis
Arkoun's story is told in simple language, but the conversations between him and those around him resonate with the echoes of their native tongue, full of colorful poetry. [July 2004, p.1815]
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Favorable
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The New Yorker
Adams displays a gift for detail and character that takes us fully inside the complex systems of survival, kinship, and religious ideology which form Aziz's world.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Joseph Finder
Adams is far less interested in the making of a terrorist than in exploring her characters' inner lives. The elegant architecture of her narrative is designed to illustrate the clash of cultures, the way we fail to understand Islamic immigrants just as surely as they're unable to understand us.
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Favorable
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The Independent Wendy Brandmark
The scenes with the FBI sound too much like a thriller film, but Harbor engages us because the characters are so real and their relationships endearing.
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Favorable
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Library Journal Lawrence Rungren
The ripped from the headlines subject matter will draw in readers, who will find more depth and complexity here than they might have expected. [15 June 2004, p.56]
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Mixed
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San Francisco Chronicle Tobin OâDonnell
Though Harbor is at times unwieldy, Adams humanizes the terrorist threat and convincingly shows how a confined worldview can breed generalizations that may hatch tragic consequences.
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