Dark At The Crossing

The 2017 novel Dark At The Crossing by American author Elliot Ackerman brings to life the story of Arab-American Haris Abadi, who has decided to dedicate his life to fighting against Bashar al-Assad's oppressive regime in Syria. Haris’s plans are delayed after he is robbed, but a friendly couple, Amir and Daphne, who share his dream to make it to Syria, helps him along. The three embark on a journey together that causes Haris to question his own motivations and the kind of man that he wants to be. Comprising six books, the novel is told from Haris’s point of view by way of a third-person narrator, including snippets of his own flashbacks and dreams throughout the narrative.

The novel begins as Haris arrives in Turkey with the intention of crossing the border into Syria to fight with the Free Army. He connected with a specific brigade, Saladin1984, by e-mail, and they invited him to join their cause. Haris is ready to fulfill what he believes is his life’s purpose in becoming a revolutionary, but when he arrives at the border he is refused entry. Realizing he needs to re-evaluate his plans, Haris retreats to a local café. Here, he is approached by two men, Saied and Athid, who question his purpose in Turkey. Haris tells them of his plans to join the Free Army and his trouble at the border crossing. After hearing his story, Athid offers to help him get to Syria.

Haris makes a plan to meet Athid and Saied two days later, and together the men navigate the underground tunnels to get to Syria. At one point, Athid abandons Haris in the tunnels and he is accosted by two Turkish officers who taser and rob him. Haris realizes that he has been set up when he witnesses the officers pay Saied. Stranded and alone, Haris is unsure of his next move. However, he is soon picked up by a couple of revolutionary refugees, Amir, and his wife, Daphne. He falls in with the couple, who are journeying to Syria for their own reasons, and soon becomes enamored of the pair.



The three of them make it to the border town of Kilis, where there is an opportunity to sneak across the Syrian border. While waiting to attempt the crossing, Haris gets to know Daphne and Amir a bit better. He accompanies Daphne to the hospital where she works one day, a dank basement that treats only Syrian patients. Finding out that Saied is a patient at this hospital, Haris asks Daphne for her help in recovering his stolen property from the man.

When they confront Saied, he claims that he has already spent Haris’s money in order to get himself to the hospital. He also tells Haris that he is Saladin1984, the person whom Haris had been corresponding with before his arrival. Saied had been a former member of the Free Army, but he was recruited by Daesh, who raided the factory where Saied worked, killing everyone except for him, keeping him alive for his technical skills. Daphne and Haris still insist that they want to cross the border, and they make a deal with Saied who agrees to help them for five thousand dollars.

Daphne shows Haris some of her journals, where she had planned future kindergarten lessons for her daughter. She explains how, during the civil war in Syria, she and some of the other mothers had gotten together to build a school for their children, including Daphne and Amir’s daughter, Kifa. Soon after, Haris finds out that Kifa died in a terrible explosion. Amir explains that he had been allowing the rebel group Aleppe to use the basement of his apartment for storage, unaware that they were storing explosives. One day, the explosives detonated when Daphne and Kifa were in the apartment. Daphne was seriously injured, so Amir had to rush her to the hospital, leaving his daughter’s body behind in the rubble.



Saied dies in the hospital, but the three of them are still determined to make it across the border. They are loaded into a truck with other refugees and their journey begins. Along the way, they are pulled over by officers near a school. Everyone is forced off the truck and questioned as to whether they support the regime or not. Then, the officers shoot all of them, regardless of their response. As he lies bleeding, Haris reflects on the pain Daphne and Amir must have felt in being separated from their daughter in such a violent and brutal way. As he feels the last moments of his life slipping away, he reaches for Daphne’s hand and attempts to stay alive long enough to see the sunrise.