A Tender Struggle: Story of a Marriage

A Tender Struggle: Story of a Marriage

by Krista Bremer
A Tender Struggle: Story of a Marriage

A Tender Struggle: Story of a Marriage

by Krista Bremer

Paperback(Previously titled My Accidental Jihad)

$15.95 
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Overview

“A story about love, marriage, compromise, parenthood and the difference between the life one imagined and reality.”*

Fifteen years ago, Krista Bremer, a California-bred feminist, surfer, and aspiring journalist, met Ismail Suayah, sincere, passionate, kind, yet from a very different world. One of eight siblings born in an impoverished fishing village in Libya, Ismail was raised a Muslim—and his faith informed his life. When Krista and Ismail made the decision to become a family, she embarked on a journey she never could have imagined, an accidental jihad: a quest for spiritual and intellectual growth that would open her mind and, more important, her heart.

“A bold piece of writing (and thinking) by an incredibly brave woman.”  —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of The Signature of All Things

“A moving, lyrical memoir.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Candid and rich.” —Good Housekeeping

“Unrelenting candor and  gorgeous prose.” —BookPage

“Krista Bremer has a very good story.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A beautiful account of [Krista’s] jihad, or struggle, to find peace within herself and within her marriage.” —The Kansas City Star

“Lucid, heartfelt, and profoundly humane . . . Navigates the boundaries of religion and politics to arrive at the universal experience of love.” —G. Willow Wilson, author of Alif the Unseen

“This is a memoir worth reading.” —*Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781616204495
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date: 03/31/2015
Edition description: Previously titled My Accidental Jihad
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 903,082
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Krista Bremer is the associate publisher of The Sun magazine and the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation award. Her essay on which this book is based, “My Accidental Jihad,” received a Pushcart Prize. Her essays have been published in O: The Oprah Magazine,More magazine, and The Sun, and she’s been featured on NPR and in the PBS series Arab American Stories. Her website is www.kristabremer.com.

Table of Contents

Part I Homeland Insecurity

1 Choices 3

2 Genie 20

3 New Life 30

4 Joining the Tribe 39

5 Expecting 49

6 Promises 58

Part II Foreigners

7 Motherhood 67

8 Desire 74

9 Gifts 81

10 Welcome 108

11 Hijabi Barbie 120

12 Freedom 127

13 Rage 147

14 Bartering 158

15 Covering 176

16 Escape 187

Part III Homecoming

17 Betrayal 199

18 Liberation 212

19 Surrender 220

20 Prayer 237

21 Celebration 258

22 Home 269

What People are Saying About This

Unpublished endorsement

My Accidental Jihad is one of the most captivating and moving memoirs I've read in years. The story Krista Bremer tells--one of radical foreignness between a married couple--could be a metaphor for all committed relationships.” --Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Named Zippy

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