Dreamers of the Day

"I suppose I ought to warn you at the outset that my present circumstances are puzzling, even to me. Nevertheless, I am sure of this much: My little story has become your history. You won’t really understand your times until you understand mine.”

So begins the account of Agnes Shanklin, the charmingly diffident narrator of Mary Doria Russell’s compelling new novel, DREAMERS OF THE DAY. And what is Miss Shanklin’s “little story?” Nothing less than the creation of the modern Middle East a…