A penetrating view of the legacies of extremism.
Poetry and terrorism color this tense coming-of-age story.
Yahya Bas, the son of a British woman and an Iraqi man, is raised as a Muslim in London by an uncle and several women who share a kind of refugee home. His father disappeared after returning to the Middle East in 1991. His mother is mentally disturbed and constantly sews until one day, Penelope–like, she begins undoing stitches. His uncle teaches Yahya about poetry, which he begins writing as a teen under the influence of the Iraq War and images from Abu Ghraib. He becomes a popular propagandist at pro-Muslim rallies. When the novel opens, Yahya is in prison, responding to interrogation from the titular “Mister” by writing his life story. The sense that the detainee faces some grim reckoning—although Gunaratne suggests otherwise by making him the first-person narrator—sustains the main thread of suspense. Allusions to the Beatles recall the Islamic State foursome given that nickname. Yahya travels overseas along a route taken by would-be jihadists. As in their first novel, In Our Mad and Furious City (2018), the author draws on actual news reports; here, in particular, stories of British jihadists who seek to come home. But the book—which recalls aspects and certainly the title of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist—goes beyond political disenchantment, exploring questions of religious and racial alienation, the power of art and oratory, the consolations of community. Gunaratne creates in their narrator, Yahya, a perceptive, sensitive character with an energetic and affecting voice. Most important, the author avoids cant or easy answers, underlining the inescapable ambivalence of such lives by closing with an ironic nod to David Copperfield, “Whether I turn out to be the hero of my own life, or the villain of yours, these pages will show.”
A penetrating view of the legacies of extremism.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9780593701423
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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