Subverts expectations with a twisting plot crossing cultural and religious boundaries.
In Rana’s debut novel, a reclusive, conservative Islamic leader and family man falls for a vivacious fashion model half his age.
The worship leader of a Muslim community in Canada, Ali Mansoor Khan is a middle-aged imam with two children whose wife, Shazia, is pregnant with a third. He is also a veteran; the horrors he experienced and injuries he sustained while serving his country in Afghanistan have left him with horrific nightmares. His reprieve from this terror comes in his dreams, in the form of the beautiful Stacy Kimball, a model Ali saw in one of his daughter’s clothing magazines. Ali becomes obsessed with Stacy and the haunting similarities the blond 20-something shares with Shazia. Upon meeting her, his attraction only grows. But even if his religion allows it, how can he take a second wife? Especially with the protestations of his family and the public scrutiny that results when a man of his age and appearance is seen with a famous young model. Rana’s debut showcases a refreshing sense of humor; forgoing subtlety more often than not, Rana presents the characters as animated, exaggerated figures. While this does little to establish a sense of realism, each character in the novel is clearly defined and instantly memorable—from Ali as the tortured, self-chastising holy man to the seductive coquette, Stacy, to Shazia, Ali’s mercurial, rampaging wife. Yet these larger-than-life personalities never undercut the darker aspects of the story. Chapters move quickly in a nonlinear fashion, a device which, while initially disorienting, creates intrigue even during more banal scenes. Rana utilizes repetition in his narrative, but it never feels tedious. Instead, the novel presents the recurring hopes, fears and sentiments of its characters in a way that resembles Ali’s prayers. The means through which Ali meets his new love are flimsy—a picture, a dream, a private investigator—but as the novel advances, it forms an eloquent commentary on image, especially as it concerns religion and race in Western society.
Subverts expectations with a twisting plot crossing cultural and religious boundaries.Pub Date: March 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-1468162721
Page Count: 402
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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