The Submission

In the two years since the Twin Towers fell, Claire Harwell has reluctantly transformed from blissful wife-and-mother into an advocate for her fellow widows. In her latest – and hopefully final – act of service, she sits on a jury charged with selecting a fitting memorial for both those who died and those they left behind.

The one submission that captures her imagination is a sweeping, tranquil garden, a place of peace well-suited to both reflection and healing; but Claire’s sense of victory at successfully piloting the garden through the selection committee is short lived when the anonymous architect is revealed to be Mo (as in ‘–hammad’) Khan, an enigmatic Muslim who feels no need to speak for the one-and-a-half billion who share his faith, or to represent the beliefs of anyone but himself. As the ensuing public and media fallout rips open racial and religious wounds that have not been mended, but only mutually ignored, Claire must confront the widening gap between the woman she had always assumed herself to be and the one she now finds she has ultimately become.