In this profile for The Wall Street Journal, journalist Tobias Grey talks with Elliot Ackerman about writing "Dark at the Crossing," and how a five-hour lunch with Abu Hassar, a former al Qaeda jihadist, shaped Athid, the novel's Islamic State soldier.
Lunch With a Former Jihadist
Ackerman describes meeting Abu Hassar, who had fought against U.S. Marines in Iraq's Al-Anbar province during one of Ackerman's own deployments, and doing what he calls the "intellectual due diligence" of understanding an adversary's motivations before writing him into fiction.
Fiction That Explores the Enemy's Perspective
Citing influences like Graham Greene and André Malraux, Ackerman explains his effort to write Islamic State characters with genuine ideology and nuance, rather than reducing them to the violent images they export.
From Green on Blue to Dark at the Crossing
Ackerman connects "Dark at the Crossing," a love story set on the Turkish-Syrian border, to his Afghan War debut "Green on Blue," and describes his broader goal of distilling complex political situations down to their emotional core.
Read the Full Profile
This profile originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal.