Because Terrorist was published in 2006, John Updike wrote this novel in the context of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Through this lens, we can unpack the novel's action. One thing to notice first is Ahmad's young age: He was too young, as he mentions, to be suspected of terrorist action, but he grew up with hate messages on his voicemail to the point where his mother unlists their phone number. In this novel, Updike provides a cohesive grasp of the feeling of loving something - in this case, religion and God - in the midst of others who take it lightly or do not consider it at all. He does so by showing how Ahmad's thoughts lie in a different place than those of his peers, how the network of support around Ahmad lets him live his values without adequately examining how these values translate to the ideological influences around him, and how Ahmad's choices are prepped by sinister Shaikh Rashid so that Ahmad can carry out an act of terrorism.
For one thing, Ahmad chooses to become a truck driver after graduation. To the reader, this seems like a choice by someone who wishes to escape the bondage of those around him without the earnest commitment he holds so dear. Ahmad gets in the truck and immediately notices how far above the other cars on the street he is; this is a privilege he remains aware of as his duty is cautiousness. His choice is in the abstract as opposed to the direct, everyday choice he made to hold himself separate in school. However, neither choice requires much notice from him because of his sense of proximity to God. On the outside, this decision to follow school with a job in trucking is because of Shaikh Rashid. Ahmad enjoys the preparation and responsibility of a truck, but the priority of Rashid is to acquire a driver for a devastating action. He takes the chance to manipulate Ahmad, the only pupil he has left.
Ahmad's phrasing and diction develop over the course of the novel to personify for the reader the novel's title, Terrorist. He transfers the emotion from his response - I am not of your faith - to an invitation to church to subjugating statements which serve to "other" those around him. He begins to make statements about his own environment instead of reacting to what he hears and experiences; he reaches out to make judgments instead of maintaining the necessary distance to preserve his thoughts.
Much of the novel fixates on the absence of Ahmad's father. Ahmad plans to take his name upon graduation, and Ahmad keeps many photographs of his father while remembering the fleeting memories he has of a warm and colorful presence. The crux of the matter is the determined absence of the father and the fact that he was never America's to begin with. The father was an exchange student, destined to return to Egypt. When Ahmad is a few years old, the man leaves to return to his old life, leaving Ahmed's mother a single mom and Ahmad in the lurch. Ahmad's culture develops out of the void, and he is the one who seeks out religion for himself.
This religion is sustained over the course of the novel even as the evil terrorist thread becomes present and characters' lives become twisted and stained by the choices they make. The characters in the novel experience various degrees of religion, but they uphold the ability of others to believe with few, if any, exceptions. Ahmad's choice is made difficult because the Shaikh is secretive, only meeting Ahmad's mom several times and never shaking her hand.
The novel begins with clear testimony about Ahmad's pure belief in Allah, but it ends distracted by the complications throughout the novel. We never recover the focus on one God Ahmad carries with him because of the narratives depicted throughout. This is the novel's overarching lesson: It is by vacillating that clear belief can be lost, but trust in the wrong individual can lead to ruin for both parties. Only through the personification of abstract values, whether those of security, human connection, art, or religion, can one escape the loss of freedom which results from submission to distractions or harmful ideologies.
