I'm not sure that I have the right words to express how good this book was. Kafka Comes to America is part memoir, part criticism of the US government and it's practices and part exploration of freedom. It's a brilliant and exceptional book. While many non-fiction books can't get that page-turner aspect down, Wax has no problems. It helps that his topic is so intense. Wax, a public defender, gives us a first hand look at what it's like, not just about being a public defender, but what it really means to defend the people who have no one looking out for them. He gives us a chance to truly understand what the war on terror really means as he fights for justice. Wax, his coworkers and employees worked to defend an American, 'the citizen,' who was arrested in connection with the Madrid train bombings (he was innocent) and a Sudanese aide worker, 'the alien,' who was grabbed from his apartment and eventually ended up in Guantanamo (he was also innocent). While Wax's firm defended more than just those two men, they are the focus of this book. Kafka Comes to America is a study in the importance of justice, but also what it means to live in this country. I highly recommend this book to anyway (American and non) to truly understand the other side of the war on terror, the side no one talks about. Wax's voice is strong, just as strong as his desire to do what's right for his clients. ( )

We Americans like "up close and personal" stories, at least if they're about athletes, celebrities, inspirational figures or the like. Yet it may be another story if we're talking about getting up close and personal with those our government accuses of being terrorists. Yet many of those stories are ones we probably need to hear.

Steven T. Wax, the head of the federal public defender's office in Portland, Ore., gives us such a look through the prism of what happened to two of his clients in Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror. One, Brandon Mayfield, made headlines across the country. He is the Portland lawyer who the FBI claimed a fingerprint tied to the March 2004 Madrid train bombings. The other is unknown to probably 99 percent of Americans. Adel Hamad is a Sudanese national who worked for an international Muslim non-governmental organization as a hospital administrator in Pakistan. He was hauled from his Peshawar apartment to a Pakistani prison and eventually flown in chains to the United States military prison in Guantanamo Bay, labeled and detained as an enemy combatant.

The two stories serve as excellent bookends for the ramifications of the policies and practices the U.S. has employed in the so-called War on Terror. Mayfield's story shows the impact of the Patriot Act and a tendency to rush to judgment in terrorism cases on a relatively average American citizen and family. Hamad's story shows the Kafkaesque limbo in which some innocent foreign civilians have been left for years. Both stories are frightening.

Balance of review here.

In Kafka Comes to America, Steven T. Wax -- the long-time Federal Public Defender for Oregon -- recounts his experience representing two clients, Brandon Mayfield and Adel Hamad.

Mayfield was a youngish attorney starting a practice in Beaverton, OR. Then he was suddenly in the international news, arrested as a material witness in the Madrid train station bombings, with leaks from the government indicating that his fingerprint matched one found on a bag of explosives. Much later, it was revealed that the Spanish National Police never agreed with the FBI's identification and in fact eventually matched the print to an Algerian suspect. By the way, it appears that the FBI focused on Mayfield largely because he was a Muslim married to an Egyptian-American.

Hamad was one of several Guantánamo detainee's Wax's office represented. Sudanese, he had spent years working for relief organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan: he taught school in a refugee camp and he was a hospital administrator. One day Pakistani police -- along with someone with an American accent -- picked him up in his apartment in July 2002. He was questioned (again and again) in a prison in Pakistan, suffering physically to the point that his captors hospitalized him, and then in March 2003 questioning and rough treatment in the Middle East, he was flown to Guantánamo. Two years later, after Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004) the Army notified detainees that they could petition for habeas corpus and, in March 2005, Hamad handwrote his petition. It was in February 2006 that he first met his lawyer. In December 2007, he finally returned home. He still hopes to have a hearing that will declare that he never was an enemy combatant. The book presents a good picture of the multi-faceted advocacy Hamad's team presented -- administrative, judicial, political.

The snarls of the system are scary -- but the dedication of the public defender team (indeed, the very existence of a public defender system) is inspiring. ( )