Book excerpt: Within this dramatic and profound collection of stories, New York Times bestselling author Michael Gurian explores the cultural and spiritual gulf between Muslims and Westerners. From Ankara to Seattle, the West Bank to Manhattan, these provocative stories continually surprise with scenes of shocking brutality and improbable enlightenment.In A Desperate Pride, a Palestinian woman falls in love with Raf Horowitz, an American Jew who arrives in Israel with reckless idealism. In The Reincarnation of Donaldo Fuertes, an elderly writer recruits a young African American Muslim to accompany him on a pilgrimage to his homeland. And in the title story, a young hospice nurse finds her life course completely changed as she fulfills her duties to a Somali woman scarred by her upbringing.With the grace and craftsmanship of a veteran storyteller, Gurian's collection is an emotional powerhouse filled with animosity and love, heartache and understanding, disillusionment and hope. Lyrical and absorbing, these stories reveal the humanity of a culture so often in conflict with our own.