An American Family: A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice
Khizr Khan
Paperback
(Random House Trade Paperbacks, Sept. 4, 2018)
This inspiring memoir by the Muslim American Gold Star father and captivating DNC speaker is the story of one familyâs pursuit of the American dream. NAMED ONE OF THE FIVE BEST MEMOIRS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST âMoving . . . a story about family and faith, told with a poetâs sensibility . . . Khizr Khanâs book can teach all of us what real American patriotism looks like.â âThe New York Times Book Review In fewer than three hundred words, Khizr Khan electrified viewers around the world when he took the stage at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. And when he offered to lend Donald Trump his own much-read and dog-eared pocket Constitution, his gesture perfectly encapsulated the feelings of millions. But who was that man, standing beside his wife, extolling the promises and virtues of the U.S. Constitution? In this urgent and timeless immigrant story, we learn that Khizr Khan has been many things. He was the oldest of ten children born to farmers in Pakistan, and a curious and thoughtful boy who listened rapt as his grandfather recited Rumi beneath the moonlight. He was a university student who read the Declaration of Independence and was awestruck by what might be possible in life. He was a hopeful suitor, awkwardly but earnestly trying to win the heart of a woman far out of his league. He was a brilliant and diligent young family man who worked two jobs to save enough money to put himself through Harvard Law School. He was a loving father who, having instilled in his children the ideals that brought him and his wife to Americaâthe sense of shared dignity and mutual responsibilityâtragically lost his son, an Army captain killed while protecting his base camp in Iraq. He was and is a patriot, and a fierce advocate for the rights, dignities, and values enshrined in the American system. An American Family shows us who Khizr Khan and millions of other American immigrants are, and whyâespecially in these tumultuous timesâwe must not be afraid to step forward for what we believe in when it matters most.Praise for An American FamilyâAn American Family is a small but lovely immigrantâs journey, full of carefully observed details from the order in which Ghazala served tea at a university event, to the schedule of the police patrols in the Boston Public Garden where Khan briefly slept while he was in between apartments, to the description of Humayunâs headstone as a âslab of white marble with soft streaks the color of wood smoke.âââAlyssa Rosenberg, The Washington Post