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Harbor
A Novel
by Lorraine Adams


7.2

based on 13 reviews
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based on 4 votes
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Official Publisher Site

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]

Alfred A. Knopf, 304 pages
08/24/2004
$23.95

ISBN: 140004233X

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

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.

Kirkus Reviews

One of America's oldest stories, the immigrant adventure, is magically new in this stunning debut about Algerians in Boston.

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.

Publishers Weekly

Adams's lucid, psychologically complicated page-turner captures the ambiguities of and raises important questions about the domestic war on terror.

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.

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.

Daily Telegraph Elena Seymenliyska

Demonstrates solid research and deep understanding of her subject, which she presents with objectivity and compassion.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.

The average user rating for this book is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S gave it an8:
"Harbor" is most successful when the Algerian immigrants are living together. More pages were needed to be penned if Adams wanted to track each man's challenge with being on their own after the group is forced to seperate. Her scope is simultaneously ambitious and sketchy. This writer is obviously somebody to watch and I would've gladly finished "Harbor" had it exceeded four-hundred pages. Adams' most brilliant conceit is how she switches to the formal versions of these Algerian men's names in the sections that involve the FBI's surveillance for possible terroristic activity by these immigrants. "Harbor" should've been longer.

brandon a gave it an8:
it a really good book it has you questioning whats going to happen next

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Harbor A Novel by Lorraine Adams

Harbor
A Novel
by Lorraine Adams