Book Short
A Place for Us, debut novel by Fatima Farheen Mirza
Review by Stephanie Miller
Someone else’s family dynamic can be a bit consoling to watch. Until you realize how familiar it all is. That is the beauty of “A Place for Us,” the New York Times bestselling debut novel of Fatima Farheen Mirza.
This is a story about defining a “good” life – particularly for first generation Muslim Indian Americans.
The wedding of the eldest daughter is the last time she sees her troubled brother, their parent’s only son. It serves as the plot’s pivot point for all the loyalty, jealousy, joy, and spitefulness during the years that lead to it, and shape the family going forward.
The father has a rigid idea of goodness based on his deep spiritual beliefs. But the son doesn’t accept that path. Despite their almost desperate love for each other, this father and son do not understand, and cannot reach, each other.
The father is bewildered by how different it was to raise a son than two daughters. “You did not ask me any of these things [that your sisters did]. I did not know if it was indifference or a desire for independence that kept you from me,” he says.
At the wedding, the son Amar meets an old friend of his father’s father. His bewilderment is a mirror-image of his father’s.
Listening to this man praise his father, Amar felt as if a balloon were growing in his chest and he was afraid if it popped, he would cry. He had been cheated out of knowing the best of his father; his father had reserved his kindness for others,” Mirza writes.
At the same time, if a daughter tries to please her father, but realizes that for all her following the rules of being a good Muslim girl in America she will never be more precious to her parents than her brother, then can she be blamed for elbowing her siblings aside once in a while?
With each chapter, a series of small incidents and a collection of remembered hurts pile up, and by consequence build walls that seem impenetrable. The family chasm is heart-breaking, but inevitable.
The writing is beautiful and deceptively simple.
There is mysticism in the flow and in the family’s traditions. It draws us in, and we become not just voyeurs of someone else’s struggles, but invested in the characters, so that we fully appreciate the instincts, words, and mistakes that so easily bring the family together – when they are not tearing them apart.
MicroShorts
Absolute Friends, by John le Carré
Beware if you take this along to the beach! You may become so absorbed that you forget to look at the waves and sandpipers! From the miracle pen of spymaster John le Carré comes this complex, witty, timely, and fast-paced tale of Cold War protester Ted Mundy, who may or may not truly believe in any of the ideology, but is fiercely protective of those he loves. Just like all le Carré thrillers, you are left questioning who is the good guy in our present political-military-capitalist Western society. But ultimately, as the title suggests, this is a book about true friendship. Who would really die for a friend?
The Alienist, by Caleb Carr
History and mystery unite in this well-researched race to find a serial child killer in 19th Century New York City. Theodore Roosevelt is head of the police commission board (that’s the history part) and his reform efforts empower an unlikely crew of psychologist (or “alienist”), reporter, former asylum residents, and eccentric detectives. In a fast-paced chase, they seek to find a killer using new techniques of psychological profiling to uncover the tortured past and anticipate the next move of a very twisted mind – before the killer strikes again. This is an intelligent, engrossing tale full of historical detail. I can’t wait to read the sequel.
Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate
Shining a bright light on a sickening but true story of systematic child kidnapping and abuse that was fully sanctioned by our nation’s “leading society luminaries,” this novel will captivate you. Told by two daughters born 60 years apart. One in Memphis 1939 who is the victim of the Tennesee Chldren’s Home Society. The other in modern day being groomed to follow her father’s successful Senate career. Hard questions are asked – and not everyone wants to know the answers. Despite the cruelty, sadness and despair suffered, this is also a story of sisterhood, loyalty, and joy.
Cakes and Ale, by W. Somerset Maugham
I love Maugham’s short stories for their precision and poetic expression. Found at the bottom of a stack of paperbacks in Yes Books on Congress Street, this short novel is very funny as a (not always quite respectful) caricature of literary life and the writers who inhabit it. It’s also a love story of sorts. Although no one who loves seems particularly happy about it, except for the heroine, Rosie, who insists, “You must take me as I am.” A delightful and teasing book that keeps you on your toes right up to the very last sentence.
Bayside resident Stephanie Miller is a voracious reader and bibliophile and spends a lot of time lost in the stacks of bookstores and libraries. Find her online @StephanieSAM
