THE CHILDREN OF THIS MADNESS

A young Bangladeshi woman and her father struggle to find their places in the world in Wahhaj’s novel.

Bangladeshi graduate student Beena attends a house party in Houston, TX, in 2003. Then the narrative flashes back to Bangladesh in the 1940s, where a boy named Ketu (Beena’s eventual father, who is called Nasir Uddin as an adult) is shipped off to live with his grandmother after embarrassing his mother. The novel bounces back and forth between Beena’s and Uddin’s points of view and timelines, telling parallel stories. In Houston, Beena wants to return to Bangladesh when she finishes her degree, but her mother insists she stay in the U.S. because Bangladesh is dangerous. In Bangladesh, in the past, Uddin attends school and then returns to his family after a long time away. He struggles with tradition and faith. When he comes of age, he decides to go to college instead of staying to support his family. Uddin grows up, gets married, and moves to Canada to continue his education. Eventually, he ends up back in Bangladesh and becomes embroiled in the conflict there. The stories come together when Uddin visits the U.S. All of this plays out against a political backdrop; in Uddin’s world, there is conflict between Bangladesh and Pakistan, and in Beena’s, there is the U.S. wars in Iraq. Both stories are about finding where one truly belongs. The protagonists have compelling arcs, though Beena comes across as a bit naïve. Some of the descriptions, especially of Bangladesh, are lovely and lyrical (“when we returned to Bangladesh, she visited my village home. I took her to the fruit trees, and there she satisfied her dream again, biting into the smooth flesh of ripe mangos, the juice trickling down her knuckles”). Still, as beautiful as the prose is, the novel lacks some emotional depth; a lot happens, and it’s described plainly, but readers don’t always get a sense of how the characters truly feel about it.

A sprawling, somewhat remote novel about the search for belonging.