Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism

 What drives a young woman raised in a postwar New York City suburb to convert to Islam, abandon her country and Jewish faith, and embrace a life of exile in Pakistan? The Convert tells the story of how Margaret Marcus of Larchmont became Maryam Jameelah of Lahore, one of the most trenchant and celebrated voices of Islam's argument with the West. Like many compelling and true tales, The Convert is stranger than fiction. It is both a gripping story of a life lived on the radical edge and a profound meditation on the roots of terror in our age of dread.

Review:

"[Deborah] Baker's captivating account conveys the instability, faith, politics, and improbable cultural migration that make [Maryam] Jameelah's life story so difficult to sum up yet impossible to dismiss." --The New York Times Book Review

"[A] stellar biography that doubles as a mediation on the fraught relationship between America and the Muslim world . . . [The Convert] is a cogent, thought-provoking look at a radical life and its rippling consequences." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[The Convert] is more than a biography; it gets at the heart of the ongoing conflict between Islam and the West." --Marie Claire

"[A] profoundly disorienting biography . . . The story [Baker] is telling is like a hall of mirrors in a fun house--full of so many distortions that the truth can come only in glimpses. The life story of Maryam Jameelah seems to have alternately fascinated, disturbed, and unsettled Deborah Baker. It is guaranteed to do the same to her readers." --Christian Science Monitor

"[Baker] opens the door to the vital questions of how radical Islam has impacted the world, and what part converts such as [Maryam] Jameelah have played . . . An important, searing, highly readable and timely narrative." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Spellbinding . . . Baker's investigation of [Maryam] Jameelah yields mysteries and surprises galore. A significant contemporary figure in Islamic-Western relations becomes human, with all the foibles and angst that word implies." --Library Journal (starred review)

"[The Convert is] a new biography as absorbing as an excellent detective story . . . Cutting back and forth between Margaret/Maryam's two perplexing lives, Baker gives us a miserable, privileged woman whose argument with her home was so strong that hers became one of the most trenchant voices of Islam's argument with the West. In this superb biography, Baker makes it an argument worth our attention." --Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

"By unpacking the boxes and piecing together [Maryam] Jameelah's complicated life, Baker untangled a nonfiction narrative as surreal as any fairy tale . . . Engrossing." --Star Tribune (Minneapolis)