Lines like, ‘I was in the North Tower when it came down’ and ‘It was time to enter the dark and brooding house’ and ‘… it was a terrible thing I ended up doing to him.’Īnd then there’s the simple lists of what he plans to do and the outcomes he expects, to be followed by another page turning device: predicated hindsight – lines like “but I couldn’t’ve been more wrong” or “I should’ve taken more notice of the photo but I didn’t.” And the interest level goes up a notch or three. It reads like a film script not surprising since Hayes is a noted screenwriter, with short chapters, each like a single-set scene with usually a stinger of a last line I call them waterfalls: they link smartly into the next scene, or, in a writing trope, they lead you to hastily turn the page. Then in Part 2 another novel begins: the development of a young jihadist, simply known as The Saracen, and his decades long quest to bring down America and so similarly destroy its ally, the Saud family, rulers of Saudi Arabia, whose leaders murdered his father. It begins traditionally enough with a baffling crime seemingly unsolvable and then several chapters of interconnected back stories. I Am Pilgrim has to be the holiday read to top all holiday reads!Īnd despite living up to the hype slashed all over its covers, it is also not what I expected.

I think it was John Irving, the winner of both the National Book Award for a novel and the Oscar for a screenplay, who said that writing a movie is like swimming in a bath and writing a novel is like swimming in the ocean. Terry Hayes, English-Australian screenwriter and novelist

I am pilgrim