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A book well worth reading
Book Review
By Derryll White
Ferrigno, Robert (2006). Prayers for the Assassin.
I have liked everything I have read of Robert Ferrigno’s. Having said that, this is a very different book for him. It is an alternate history that challenges everything. A reader might think to watch a couple of weeks of the BBC news feed on Syria and several episodes of ‘Homeland’ to obtain a mindset that lays the foundation for ‘Prayers for the Assassin.’
With Donald Trump’s travel ban on Muslim states in place one believes that Ferrigno might indeed be shaping the future here.
There is a civil war. Canada is a free zone and America is divided into the Bible Belt (essentially the old Confederacy) and the Islamic Republic with headquarters in Seattle. Liberal San Francisco has become Sharia City where they behead homosexuals every week at the Civic Centre. Ferrigno invites the reader to question history, to read the tea leaves that trace a culture’s shift from personal rights to Sharia law. Eleven years after publication of ‘Prayers for the Assassin’ those tea leaves are becoming even clearer.
This is an exciting book from Robert Ferrigno. It reaches further, examining the very foundations of the United States of America. It is well worth reading.
****
Excerpts from the novel:
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF AMERICA – The Zionist Betrayal was the final blow, collapsing the economy and bringing on a declaration of martial law. In the midst of such chaos, the moral certainty of Islam was the perfect antidote to the empty bromides of the churches, and the corruption of the political class. After losing a disputed national election, vast numbers of disaffected Christians migrated to the Bible Belt and declared their independence. In a stroke of political brilliance, the remaining Christians, mostly Catholics, were granted almost equal citizenship with the Muslim majority in the new Islamic Republic. The nation held together.
PERCEPTION – Everything fits, Rakkim, was one of her favourite sayings. Everything fits – it’s up to us to see the picture in the puzzle. She did too. Sarah read the cultural tea leaves at a glance, a mixture of insight and intuition that allowed her to form conclusions before most academics had even analyzed the data.
LUCK – The others thought him lucky, favoured by Allah, and fought to stay close to him. Rakkim didn’t have the heart to tell them that luck was not a fire, warming those around it. Luck, like the favor of Allah, was a black hole. You either fell in or you didn’t.
HISTORY – History was a messy and treacherous business, her favourite teacher had taught, but the truth was worth it…. To rewrite history was to invite chaos, with all its attendant pain and suffering.
STATE OF THE NEW NATION – “The happiest day of my life was when we became an Islamic nation, but as a sociologist, I’m troubled by what I see.” She looked directly at him, unflinching. “We used to lead the world in science and technology. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Now, every year we have fewer graduates in engineering and mathematics. Our manufacturing plants are outdated, our farm productivity falling, and patent applications are only forty percent of what they were in the old regime.”
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
