WHEN MIGHT ONE'S COUNTRY BE UNDESERVING OF ONE'S LOYALTY?

Nathan Englander, Dinner at the Center of the Earth: A Novel (New York: Knopf, 2017) (From the book jacket: "A secret prisoner has been held in a black site in the Negev desert for a dozen years, suspended with his guard in a state of mutually shattering existential limbo. How does a nice American Jewish boy from Long Island wind up as Israeli spy working for the Mossad and, later, a traitor to his adopted country? What does it mean to be loyal, what does it mean to be a traitor, when the ideals you cherish are betrayed by the country you love?" Is not that the burning--and universal--question we all need to answer? Even, and perhaps especially, we who call ourselves "Americans'?).