The Submission

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011

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Chapters 11-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 11 Summary

Paul Rubin holds a small gathering of the jury in his home to officially congratulate Mohammed Khan as the winner of the competition. Claire waxes on to Khan about the beauty of the garden design. Khan does not feed her need for thanks for coming to his defense because he feels no congratulations are necessary for doing the decent thing.

Feeling uncomfortable about the small affair when he knows any other entrant would have received a large venue full of press, Mo calls Laila to meet for dinner at a quiet restaurant. He’s been thinking about her a little too frequently. When he had tried to hold her hand, she resisted, saying she needed to observe MACC’s beliefs in order to be part of the organization. She invites him for tea, then they enter her building at separate times and separate entrances to ensure they are not discovered.

Claire realizes that she had expected Khan’s gratitude. When she looks at the picture of the jury and Khan in the press, she disapproves that he is smiling while he is surrounded by dour faces. She looks at the Times art section to see if they’ve critiqued it and weighed in. The critic points out how Islamic/Middle Eastern the gardens really are, drawing parallel after parallel to actual gardens—not so much Islamic gardens as agricultural ones. Fox News airs a tirade about how Khan had designed a memorial to the murderers; The Wall Street Journal declares the garden a Trojan horse bringing the evils of Islam into the country. Claire momentarily loses her senses and wonders if some of the declarations might be true. Then she snaps back to reality. She believes that once Khan explains his design, things will naturally fall into place.

The extended Gallagher clan gets together to share their misery and listen to broadcasts on the subject. Sean contemplates his relationship with his mother and his desire to dissolve her pain. He thinks back to Claire’s unimaginably large mansion and hopes she was scared. He wishes he’d thrown a rock at the glass structure.

Chapter 12 Summary

Protesters march with signs outside Emmanuel Roi’s architectural firm, jeering and shaking rattles when they catch sight of Mo. The police make sure the protest extends into the local areas so that the protesters near the site can’t be accused of illegal harassment.

Mo and Laila begin spending the night together, but only at her place the first night because of her fear that their relationship might be discovered. The debate rages on, not only among the common people but also among the liberal New Yorkers who see their psychiatrists to explore why their gut instinct says “no” while their minds say “yes.” Mo begins to separate himself from the Mohammed Khan being excoriated in the media. But Mo is not completely alone. Famous film stars like Robert de Niro and Susan Sarandon publicly support him.

Sean asks Paul for an audience, and Paul arranges a meeting in a restaurant quite a bit more upscale than Sean is accustomed to. Sean’s objective is simple: to let Paul know in uncertain terms how he, his family, and his friends feel about the winner of the memorial competition. Sean is humiliated by the prices on the menu and by the knowledge that his unkempt appearance singles him out among the customers. Several friends drop by their table and have lengthy conversations, all praising Paul, making Sean feel even more unimportant and out of place. Paul makes clear that the jury is in charge of the outcome and that Sean is welcome to express his opinions there.

The belligerent members of Save America from Islam, or SAFI, invite Sean and his group to join them. They’re shouting Quran verses using vocabulary Sean doesn’t know, which bothers him. This group is led by a woman named Debbie Dawson, who flaunts herself in a transparent burka with a bikini underneath. Debbie tells her avid followers that throughout history the Muslims have captured, destroyed, and raised mosques in place of Christian monuments. She urges the group to keep up the pressure on Claire Burwell.

Asma prefers to spend her time quietly reading the newspapers. She reads the accusations the Americans are making against Muslims, including that they tell lies. She thinks of the harmless lies she’s told and wonders if it’s true. She is visited by the gossipy Mrs. Mahmoud, with whom Asma grows less tolerant. Surprisingly, Mrs. Mahmoud says she thinks Khan’s design shouldn’t be used. Asma reminds her that it is her memorial to Inam too, and that the man’s prize shouldn’t be taken away. It would be too much like Pakistan disallowing the Bangladeshis’ election.

Paul decides that Khan must give up his design. As he and his wife Edith attend an art gathering in his gay son’s very modern loft, he overhears a conversation and gets an idea of just how to bring that about. He will do what one of his son’s friends does to get someone to quit: give the person more and more menial, unimportant tasks.

When Mohammed Khan meets with the jury to discuss the memorial, they suggest all sorts of changes that Mo immediately sees as meaningless, ludicrous. There’s a fire and obstinacy in Mo’s resistance that Paul admires.

Chapters 11-12 Analysis

Chapter 11 focuses largely on public perception. The memorial jury hosts a small, private gathering in Paul’s home to honor Mo, who is keenly aware that a winner with any other heritage would have been treated to a much grander, more public affair, with a large press presence.

In exploring public perception, the chapter uses Claire’s character to survey various media outlets’ responses to the memorial garden and its design. This scene shows the media exploiting stereotypes and cultural biases to persuade, to sow uncertainty, or to generate viewership. As Claire, who has staunchly defended the Garden from Chapter 1, takes in the deluge of information, even she experiences a moment of doubt. Her hopeful but naive belief that things will fall into place once Mo explains his design foreshadows further conflict to come.

As a subset of identity, social class is a very important aspect of this book. When Paul invites Sean to an upper-middle-class restaurant to hold the meeting Sean requested, Sean feels like outsider, like he’s a tier below, and Paul knows it. Paul also uses his social standing to interrupt Sean’s speech. The acquaintances who approach Paul with further interruptions are not planned, but they’re not unexpected either, and they further highlight the divide between Sean and Paul.

Debbie Dawson, whose social class is similar to Sean’s, adds a comic, almost obscene touch to the book, but not in a sexual way. Rather, she and her followers are obscene in flaunting their ignorance. One would think her group and Sean’s would be a natural fit, but once again Sean feels like an outsider because he doesn’t know the pseudo-Islamic vocabulary that Dawson touts, and she is too busy being seen to teach him.

Chapter 12 also devotes time to further developing Asma’s character. She reads the newspapers and sees the accusations against Muslims, and she examines herself. It is increasingly apparent that she is a just, brave, kind-hearted, and reflective person—someone who embodies several of America’s traditional values.