The Good Son by Michael Gruber - spoliers

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ktaborn
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The Good Son by Michael Gruber - spoliers

Post by ktaborn »

The Good Sun by Michael Gruber

I read a fiction book this time around. Anyone else read it?

The Good Son is set in contemporary United States and Pakistan. It is about an American woman married to a Pakistani who is kidnapped by the Taliban in Pakistan on her way to a peace conference. Her son is a Navy SEAL who decides to rescue her, being the good son of the title. There is also a CIA interpreter who begins to figure out the good son's plan.

The novel is actually better than I made it sound. The mother is a trained practitioner of Jung and uses it to understand and manipulate her captors. I found her sections in effect a mary jane fan fiction experience since she was so erudite, so logical, so perceptive, and so articulate. I wish I were a tenth that in real life. She ran an ambitious long game, slowly making the Talibani doubt each other, while at the same time, trying to help her fellow captives the best she could. She was ultimately too good, but she provided me a great fantasy mary jane moment.

I was not as engaged with the other two narratives (the good son and the CIA agent) and there was a shocking twist at the end that really did not shock me since I was too focused on the mom! I totally filtered this novel through the challenges I am currently going through. Which I do not mind, since I am trying to shape, test, prod, and make sense of what I have gone through the past nine months. And through that filter, the mother role-modeled an attitude, approach, and perhaps philosophy of how a leader can or cannot lead in a crisis. Right now I am absorbing what I can anywhere I can. I am determined to become a better person and leader once I have reached some sort of conclusion in my current challenges. In the case of this novel, the role model was more a fantasy solution than a real solution, but there still is a lot of wisdom to be found in story-telling.
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