Into the Sun
Fiction

Into the Sun

By
Deni Ellis Béchard
“Ferociously intelligent and intensely gripping.” —PHIL KLAY
Select Format

When a car explodes in a crowded part of Kabul ten years after 9/11, a Japanese-American journalist is shocked to discover that the passengers were acquaintances—three fellow ex-pats who had formed an unlikely love triangle.

Alexandra was a human rights lawyer for imprisoned Afghan women. Justin was a born-again Christian who taught at a local school. Clay was an ex-soldier who worked as a private contractor. The car’s driver, Idris, was one of Justin’s most promising pupils—and he is missing. Drawn to the secrets of these strangers, and increasingly convinced the events that led to the fatal explosion weren’t random, the journalist follows a trail that leads from Afghanistan to Louisiana, Maine, Québec, and Dubai. In the process, the tortured narratives of these individuals become inseparable from the story of America’s imperial misadventures.

In this monumental novel, Deni Ellis Béchard draws an unsentimental portrait of those who flock to warzones, indelibly capturing these journalists, mercenaries, idealists, and aid workers. Béchard vividly brings to life the city of Kabul as well, along with the people who live there: the hungry, determined, and resourceful locals who are just as willing as their occupiers to reinvent themselves to survive.

Keywords
adventure, afghan war, afghanistan, aid workers, american imperialism, born again christian, danger, deception, double crosses, dubai, ex soldier, expatriots, explosion, human rights lawyer, idealists, ideals, imprisoned women, intrigue, japanese american, journalist, kabul, literary fiction, literary thriller, locals, louisiana, love triangle, maine, mercenaries, military, money, occupiers, political thriller, politics, private contractor, psychological, purpose, quebec, redemption, reporters, secrets, survival, transformation, war
ISBN
9781571311146
Publish Date
Pages
464
Dimensions
5.25 × 8 × 1 in
Weight
16.8 oz
Cover Art
Author
Deni Bechard

Deni Ellis Béchard

Deni Ellis Béchard is the author of seven previous books. His fiction includes Vandal Love, winner of the 2007 Commonwealth Writers Prize, Into the Sun, White, and, most recently, A Song from Faraway. He is also the author of Cures for Hunger, a memoir about growing up with a father who robbed banks, and Of Bonobos and Men, which won the 2015 Nautilus Book Award for investigative journalism.

Praise and Prizes

  • “A ferociously intelligent and intensely gripping portrait of the expatriate community in Kabul—the idealists, mercenaries, aid workers, and journalists circling around a war offering them promises of purpose, redemption, or cash, while the local Afghans in their orbit negotiate the ever-changing and ever-dangerous politics of the latter stages of the American war in Afghanistan. Brilliant.”

    Phil Klay
    author of Redeployment

  • “Ambitious and nuanced … An insightful and affecting look into the lives of those who risk everything to help the people of Afghanistan and tell their stories.”

    Kirkus

  • “Into the Sun is an ambitious novel that succeeds on all levels. It’s a riveting mystery-thriller that also probes deeper into the nature of war and the ways in which it attracts and transforms some people. Into the Sun has the propulsive force of a car bomb in the bloodstream, quickening the reader’s pulse at every turn, right up to the very last page.”

    David Abrams
    author of Fobbit

  • “A story of haunting beauty rendered from the legacy of the Afghan War. In scope and skill, Deni Ellis Béchard’s portrait of those who are both drawn to and entangled by conflict is reminiscent of the best works of Graham Greene and Philip Caputo. A fitting paean to the wrecked souls of an endless war.”

    Elliot Ackerman
    author of Green on Blue

  • “Into the Sun is ambitious, elegant, and filled with a kind of ferocious intelligence. Deni Ellis Béchard explores the culture of the war zone, creating a compelling picture of that dark and turbulent place.”

    Roxana Robinson
    author of Sparta

  • “We wake from this book as witnesses to Kabul, to America and to the crimes of men who need destruction to find definition and women desperate to understand. Deni Ellis Béchard is channeling Melville and Conrad, their oceans and rivers replaced with dust and smoke. There are sentences on these pages that will be quoted in universities and taped to newsroom desks for a century.”

    Benjamin Busch
    author of Dust to Dust

  • “One of the finest novels I’ve read in years, an unrelenting and daring masterpiece about war, the quest for understanding after tragedy, and the power of human yearning for connection.”

    Jesse Goolsby
    author of I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them

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