Dark at the Crossing: A novel (Ackerman, Elliot)

In this story the main character Haris is trying to cross the border from Turkey into Syria so that he can participate in the civil war there. As the story unfolds the reader is giving a look into the motivations of Haris as well as the other characters who all seem to be living with a sort of quite desperation from past emotional trauma each has experienced and is trying to deal with. This is an easy read but it is not an easy book to read. I think this is because as you read you realize that many of the characters in the book are broken and that while they are desperate to remedy their situation, their actions will not result in a solution. This is not an action story and it is far from uplifting but if you like the type of books that slowly reveals more and more about the characters explaining their motivations this is a good story.

Beautiful story about displaced people and the choices people make. Inciteful read about being a refugee and how individuals adapt, or not. A Well written tale with believable characters in situations not of their own making. What is it like to be Syrian caught up in a war trying to survive and living in Turkey? I couldn't put it down.

I couldn't stop myself from caring about these people whose lives were tangled in a war that was out of their control. This story gives the reader a chance to learn something of the conditions that others are subject to.

A difficult but engrossing read written by someone fully aware of the tensions and motivations of time and place. Aptivating.

Dark at the Crossing captures a picture of life on the edge of the chaos in Syria with characters which get your sympathy if not understanding.

Elliot Ackerman probes the depth of tragedy with an elegiac sense for a dying country and the variety of people who still love their country as a truck load of people cross over the border with a need to get back to Aleppo. His portrait of refugee camps and children creates a mirror beyond fiction.

Excellent

This book held my attention but it was certainly unsettling. As is the real ongoing conflict. Such a sense of lost hope and cause.