Convert The (PB)

What drives a young woman raised in a 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. A cache of Maryam's letters sends acclaimed biographer Deborah Baker on an odyssey into the labyrinthine heart of 20th century Islam. Casting a shadow over these letters is the mysterious figure of Maulana Abul Ala Mawdudi both Maryam's adoptive father and the man who laid the intellectual foundations for militant Islam. As Baker assembles the pieces of Maryam's extraordinary life she finds herself narrating a true life story stranger than fiction. The Convert 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.