Elliot Ackerman's Dark at the Crossing Is a Tale of War, Love, and Loss

The National Book Foundation released its list of finalists for the 2017 National Book Awards on Wednesday (Oct. 4), naming five books in each of four categories to its prestigious list. Among the finalists in fiction is Elliot Ackerman's novel Dark at the Crossing, a tale of love, war, and loss in the Middle East.

The protagonist of the book is Haris Abadi, an American of Middle Eastern descent who is trying to get into Syria to fight against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president who has been accused of war crimes that include killing political opponents, torturing citizens, and using chemical warfare against the people of Syria.

On his way to Syria, Haris encounters married couple Amir and Daphne, two Syrian refugees. They lost their daughter in an explosion caused by the Free Syrian Army, which leads Haris to question just who is fighting whom and why they're even fighting at all.

When Daphne wants to return to Aleppo, Amir lets her go with Haris, and the two of them brave the war-torn country together. It is not exactly a happy or uplifting novel, if that's what you're looking for, but it does touch on something very real and prescient to today's global society.

The author has been covering the war in Syria as a journalist since 2013. Before that, Ackerman was a White House Fellow and did five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a US Marine, receiving a Silver Star, the Bronze Star For Valor, and the Purple Heart, so he has plenty of real-life experience to draw on for the novel. His 2015 novel Green on Blue is another piece worth a look, exploring the modern-day war in Afghanistan through the eyes of two brothers who live there.