Books in Brief

National Review, June 16, 2003

amanda bright@home, by Danielle Crittenden (Warner, 368 pp., $23.95)

In this charming novel, Danielle Crittenden gives us a year in the life of Amanda Bright: mother of two, wife of Bob Clarke, and resident of Washington, D.C. Amanda is a graduate of Brown who gave up her career to stay home with the kids. Bob is a Justice Department lawyer. His public-sector job is a source of pride for them, but also the cause of their money shortage.

Having finally convinced his boss to pursue antitrust litigation against software-giant Megabyte (think Microsoft), Bob becomes wrapped up in his work and the notoriety the high-profile case brings. Meanwhile, Amanda continues her act in the ladies-who-lunch circus, feigning interest in its chief stunts: gabbing about money, redecorating the house, and undergoing plastic surgery. With Bob off crusading, Amanda feels invisible, lacking identity; she yearns to return to work.

Fiction allows Crittenden freely to explore the ideas contained in her wise polemic What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us. Her portrayal of the struggles encountered by at-home mothers is sensitive and convincing. The usual compliments -- "I really respect what you do," "Staying at home is the noblest calling" -- however well-meaning, fall flat. We see Amanda's self-doubt, and even wonder if perhaps she should go back to work. She flails about, looking for meaning, even contemplating a romantic affair. But a simple plot turn causes the second "click" within Amanda's soul (the first came when she realized how much she needed to stay home with her son). She realizes that the sense of accomplishment and identity she sought had been there all along, in motherhood.

NR readers will recognize some of the characters, such as Cathy O'Toole, hard-hitting pundit at National Standard magazine. Insiders will discern even more character likenesses. amanda bright@home is a fast read, perfect for beach readers -- not to mention busy mothers.

-- Sarah Maserati

Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World, by Jean Bethke Elshtain (Basic, 256 pp., $23)

With this book, Elshtain -- a professor of ethics at the University of Chicago and a member of the editorial advisory board of First Things -- launches a rhetorical fusillade at the theologians and other academics who responded evasively to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The usual suspects are here -- Edward Said, Jean Baudrillard, Mary Beard -- and Elshtain demolishes their claims in clear-eyed and convincing fashion. She also provides a fascinating introduction to the arguments that have informed thousands of years of just-war scholarship; by the end of the book the reader knows his jus ad bellum from his tranquillitas ordinis.

The problem with antiwar intellectuals, Elshtain argues, is that they refuse to make distinctions between justice and revenge; murder and the unintentional killing of civilians; and terrorism and legitimate warfare. "If we could not distinguish between an accidental death resulting from a car accident and an intentional murder," she tartly observes, "our criminal justice system would fall apart." But what's striking is that for every Edward Said, there is also an Andrew Sullivan or an Alain Minc -- important writers and academics who think that the war on terror is just and who are not afraid to call evil by its name. In fact, the intellectuals who do think the war on terror is just -- a diverse group that includes Michael Walzer, Christopher Hitchens, Vaclav Havel, and Bernard Lewis -- seem to outnumber their antiwar counterparts. "Where is the legacy of Niebuhr and Tillich?" Elshtain asks in desperation. The answer is simple: Their legacy lives on in the writers who, like her, make clear to the world the dangers of Islamofascism.

-- Matthew Continetti