Dark at the Crossing

boots.

 

I d prefer you pay in dollars, said the concierge.

 

As hard as he d worked to become an American, Haris hated the way his new clothes and strong currency betrayed him abroad. He paid in dollars, and the concierge tucked the tight fold of twenties into his vest s front pocket.

 

Allow me to find you a cab.

 

Haris nodded, then got up and went to the bathroom, leaving his heavy pack unattended in the opulent dining room. He didn t seem to care if everything was taken from him.

 

 

 

It had rained the night before, and that morning the late autumn sky cleared, turning the air cold, freezing the sidewalks. Outside the Tu can, an old man, a Syrian, swept the slush from the hotel s marble front step with a rolled copy of the daily paper, Milliyet. His eyes were sheathed in wrinkles and on his head he wore a keffiyeh. It was held in place by an igal, a coiled wreath, which sat on him like the crown of perpetual defeat. Hunched over, the old man worked slowly, positioning himself so someone from the hotel might notice his pains and offer a bit of charity.

 

The revolving door spun a turn, and the concierge and Haris stepped outside. The old man looked up at them, holding his face toward the sun. He offered a toothy, rotten grin. His eyes shifted from them to his work, clearing the last of the slush from their path. Haris reached into his pocket. His fingers felt for a coin or folded lira note. Before he could find either, the concierge flicked the toe of a polished oxford at the old man, shooing him away. The old man said nothing. He took a few steps from the Tu can s marble front and wandered onto the frozen sidewalk, where he stood like a broken piece of furniture set out in the street.

 

The

Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn s Long Halftime Walk

Infused with profound knowledge, empathy, and chutzpah, Ackerman s writing is hauntingly evocative and beautiful. It is a rare writer who is not afraid to deal with the toughest conflicts, ask the hardest questions, show the darkest side of even heroes, and still manage to renew our faith in humanity.
Elif Shafak, author of The Bastard of Istanbul 

Here is a thriller, psychological fiction, political intrigue, and even a love story all wrapped into a stunningly realistic and sometimes horrifying package. Put Ackerman on the A-list.
Library Journal (starred)

Elliot Ackerman s quietly subversive sensibilities make him one of the most potent and original writers to emerge from that elite platoon of men and women who, since 9/11, have laid down their guns to pick up a pen. Once again, here in his second novel, Dark at the Crossing, Ackerman insists American readers immerse themselves in the humanity of their country s enemies and victims. His work is a unique and bittersweet blessing of raw grace and naked, bleeding empathy.
Bob Shacochis, author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul

Once again, Elliot Ackerman dares to imagine his way into the minds, lives, and fates of people too many American writers would judge as inaccessible perhaps even forbidden. The result is a book whose emotional acuity is matched only by its literary artistry. They don t award medals of valor to novelists, but while reading this book I often thought, Maybe they should.
Tom Bissell, author of Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve

Ackerman has done a masterful job of creating a novel of ideas that invites thoughtful consideration of the folly and futility of war and the failure of idealism . . . The text is beautifully written, and the rendering of the setting is superb. Dark at the Crossing makes a significant contribution to the literature of war.
Booklist (starred)

Ackerman is a magnificent storyteller. Dark at the Crossing is a quietly but intensely profound novel. It captures this epic moment in Middle East history in human terms. It s a riveting read. I couldn t put it down.
Robin Wright, author of Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion across the Islamic World

Welcome to a dark world illuminated by visions that the writer Elliot Ackerman has brought back from his wars, his journalistic investigations, and from his artist s imagination. We see a professional soldier s overused muscles, the smile of an Ivy League war-profiteer in his bathrobe, a Turkish woman s seductive glamour all with lifelike clarity. This novel makes us see and hear as if we are there, too close for comfort, as Ackerman s hero and heroine are drawn, against any self-preserving logic, back across the border into the maelstrom of Syria. Can anyone make this dark crossing and remain true? Ackerman s heroes try. Like Robert Stone s A Flag for Sunrise, to which Ackerman s novel bears comparison, both for its sophisticated understanding of current affairs and its grim realism, Dark at the Crossing is a disturbing report on the ancient paradox of war in which life and death, good and evil are intimately intertwined. After the bodies fall, the green grass grows over them. We look at the graves and ask, What does it mean? In this stunning, grief-inspiring book, it seems to me that Ackerman confesses we do not know. I don t think anyone can ask more of a piece of literature than this delivers.
Atticus Lish, author of Preparation for the Next Life

A timely and unsettling novel . . . A stark and multifaceted portrait of the civil war in Syria.
Publishers Weekly

Elliot Ackerman s slow-build, atmospheric, and profoundly compassionate novel offers an unexpected and unique perspective on the most volatile conflict zone of the present day. Richly detailed and told with the force of first-hand experience, Dark at the Crossing is a courageous and vital work.
Greg Baxter, author of The Apartment

Timely . . . Former Marine and current Middle East scholar Ackerman explores territory familiar to him but uncharted to most of us. Ackerman humanizes a war fraught with tragedy and seemingly without resolution.
Kirkus Reviews

Ackerman makes clear the tangled, shifting lines in the war . . . This is a tightly packed, nuanced narrative in which virtually every character introduced plays a pivotal role. The story is told with economy and a sense of urgency even when the characters seem to be stuck in a holding pattern.
Washington Independent Review of Books

Affirms [Ackerman s] high regard among contemporary storytellers. His story blends tension and substance and is anything but ordinary.
Military Times

Dark at the Crossing features a novelist fully growing into his literary powers . . . Ackerman s gift for prose and dialogue are on full display. He crafts a brutal love story and also beautifully depicts a violent part of the world largely misunderstood by those on the outside of the battle lines. A must read for anyone attempting to further their understanding of the Middle East, as well as our shared humanity.
Writer s Bone

Dark At The Crossing is written with exquisite care for both its exactness of language and its materials . . . Ackerman s American readers are afforded a chance to enter the emotional range of those they have abandoned in Syria and in the end, Ackerman doesn t hold back when the horror mounts.
On the Seawall
 
Ackerman extends an impressive amount of empathy toward each of the characters . . . Instead of trying to make a grand statement about what war means, Dark at the Crossing illustrates how war can mean different things to different people.
Shelf Awareness