The Solace of Trees

May 29, 2017
In Madrygin’s gripping debut, the horrors of war give way to the challenges of carving out a life in a hostile country. Amir is an 11-year-old living on a farm in Bosnia when his world is thrown into turmoil after the breakout of civil war. When his family is killed, Amir joins a group of strangers who eventually make their way to a UN camp. After a long, stifling wait at the camp Amir is finally given a chance to go to the United States. Amir thrives in the new country. Fostered by a former university professor, he becomes a film major and begins working on a documentary. But his upward trajectory and growing optimism are soon blunted by xenophobia (particularly Islamophobia) and post-9/11 anxiety that place him instantly in the role of antagonist in a country he has barely begun to know. Arrested and questioned about possible terrorist ties, Amir struggles to find a way to prove his innocence. Madrygin’s stark third-person narration allows focus on the difficulties faced by immigrants and refugees, particularly children who are struggling with trauma. But at times the writing becomes literal and overly detailed, walking the reader from point to point more like reportage than prose. While the novel effectively captures the broad strokes of life as a refugee, it never convincingly brings the human side of the story to life.

June 1, 2017
Madrygin's harrowing, compelling debut will live long in the reader's memory. It follows Amir Beganovic-Morgan, a Bosnian Muslim refugee, as he tries to rebuild his life in the U.S. After a prologue that hints that Amir's ethnicity will once again render him guilty by association, the story moves back to an 11-year-old Amir luckily escaping the ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian War, but only after losing his family, speech, and hearing. The story follows Amir from a UN refugee camp to a foster home in New England, and then on to college. Though the writing can be didactic and occasionally falls into cliche, Amir is a character the reader comes to care for deeply. When his promising life eventually clashes with post-9/11 attitudes and laws, Amir's tale, like Dave Eggers' What Is the What (2006), exposes the consequences of the often arbitrary, horrific policies of the war on terror. A timely novel that introduces a writer of huge ambition, The Solace of Trees is deeply informative and moving, and it will spark debates regarding American foreign policy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)