First, some background information compiled from Newsweek and Time Magazine when the book was first published in 1988: In issuing his decree against Salmon Rushdie and his book, The Satanic Verses, Iran"s Ayatollah Khomeini drew worldwide attention to a novel that otherwise might have gone largely unnoticed by many people. It is Khomeini who helped make The Satanic Verses a bestseller. The 100,000 copies first distributed in the United States quickly sold out. Another 200,000 copies were expected any day. I was told on the day I sought out my own copy. I was 90th on a...
observations: "Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that"s what."

On the author"s fate as a writer: "The writer agrees to the ruination of his life, and gains but only if he"s lucky maybe not eternity, but posterity, at least. Either way, it"s the Devil who wins."

Finally, a hopeful note at the end of the novel:

"It seemed that in spite of all his wrong-doing, weakness, guilt -- in spite of his humanity -- he was getting another chance. There was no accounting for one"s good fortune, that was plain."