Terrorist by John Updike. Knopf (312pgs.) $24.99

In John Updike's twenty-second novel, the author tackles the problem of terrorism in the post-9/11 world. It is an ambitious novel and perhaps the first to deal with this subject matter from the terrorist's point-of-view.

The terrorist in question is Ahmad Mulloy, an 18 year-old high school student living in the seedy industrial town of New Prospect, NJ. Ahmad is the product of a youthful liason between a Irish-American mother and an Egyptian father. The father abandoned Ahmad and his mother when Ahmad was a baby. Ahmad's mother, not one to do any actual parenting, leaves the boy to his own devices. Ahmad becomes a loner and joins the Muslim faith. As he becomes more radical in his thinking he falls in step with a local terrorist cell leader and joins a plot to suicide bomb the Lincoln Tunnel. Ahmad's efforts are complicated by his lust for black hottie, Joryleen Grant and the intervention of Jewish guidance counselor, Jack Levy ( a man who is engaged in an improbably ridiculous affair with Ahmad's mother).

Updike is dealing in the millieu of Le Carré and the geography of Richard Price. He doesn't do either all that convincingly. As literary thrillers go, Updike's pacing is inconsistant, slowing to a crawl whenever Ahmad spouts one of his anti-American diatribes. Updike's A-goes-into-slot-B view of terrorism and its machinations is an oversimplification of the problem. Although Updike's descriptions of his characters are razor-sharp, his characters are still stereotypical. Probably my biggest problem with this novel is Ahmad himself. He is the latest in a long line of Updike's Man-Boy characters. It is as if Updike took a pair of scissors, cut Rabbit Angstrom out of Rabbit Run, and pasted him into this novel, shoved a hot poker up his ass and gave him a copy of the Koran to digest. I was not at all convinced that Ahmad could light a firecracker much less become a suicide bomber.

The thing about Updike is that when he succeeds, he is brilliant. And, when he fails, his writing prowess often fools a lesser reader into thinking he's brilliant. Well, I'm not a lesser reader and I was not fooled. I'm willing to give Updike half a gold star for trying, but this book fails to live up to its promise.

-- reviewed by JCE