Review of THE STRANGERS by Katherena Vermette (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

The novel focuses on four women, representing three generations, of a Métis family living in Winnipeg. Margaret is a sad, angry woman whose dreams were derailed because of a pregnancy.  Her daughter Elsie has lost three children to the foster care system; she wants to be reunited with them but she is struggling with addiction.  Elsie’s daughter Phoenix is incarcerated; as the novel opens she is pregnant.  Cedar-Sage is Phoenix’s younger sister who has spent most of her life in foster homes but is given an opportunity to move in with her long-absent father.

The title is perfect.  The family surname is Stranger, but the four women have also become strangers to each other.  Margaret is a distant mother who had little time for Elsie when she was a child; in fact, Elsie was raised more by Margaret’s mother Annie.  As a result, Elsie is disconnected from her mother, and because of her drug usage, she has lost her children.  Cedar-Sage tries to connect with both Phoenix and Elsie but the behaviour of her sister and her mother make this difficult.  There are also secrets and misunderstandings. 

Men in the novel are not portrayed very positively.  Several of the men live the criminal lifestyle, in and out of prison.  Other men just disappear.  Margaret has not heard from one of her sons for years, and Cedar-Sage’s father abandoned her to her mother’s care.  Elsie drifts from one man to another, but most eventually disappear from her life.  One who does come back into her life periodically is not a positive influence. 

This is not an easy read.  There are so many broken characters with broken relationships and unhappy lives.  The consequences of trauma can be clearly seen in ensuing generations.  The book even opens with a trigger warning:  triggers “include depictions of child apprehension, solitary incarceration, suicide ideation, some drug use, and some physical violence.”  Though the author adds that she did “try to cram as much love and hope in between as possible,” I found little hope.  Cedar-Sage may perhaps be able to achieve what Margaret hoped to accomplish because she does have more of a support system, but the bonds she wants to forge with family members will probably not be possible.  There is love, but love alone is not enough to solve the problems.

There are a lot of characters and a family tree would have been helpful.  The tree that is provided is unclear; of course, I read a pre-publication galley so hopefully this problem will be rectified.  Characters that appear in this novel also appear in Vermette’s debut novel, The Break.  I would recommend that people first read The Break because much is explained that would clarify the reasons for people’s behaviour in The Strangers.  For instance, The Strangers does not explain why Phoenix is in jail, other than “Phoenix did a horrible thing and is in jail for a long time.”  We are also told that she is on the sex offenders list.  Knowing Phoenix and Elsie’s backstories would be helpful.

Like The Break, this book is unflinching in its gaze at life for contemporary Indigenous women in urban Canada.  It is very real and honest, often brutally so.  It is not a book that readers will enjoy, though it is a book that deserves to be read.

Note:  I received a  digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THE MYSTERY OF RIGHT AND WRONG by Wayne Johnston (New Release)

 4 Stars

I have read most of Wayne Johnston’s novels and have enjoyed them all; those I have reviewed on my blog have all been given 4-star ratings.  I was excited to receive a digital galley of The Mystery of Right and Wrong, his latest, and it does not disappoint.

Wade Jackson, a young aspiring writer from a Newfoundland outport, meets Rachel van Hout while at university in St. John’s and falls in love with her.  Little does he know how much the van Hout family will change his life.  As he gets to meet Rachel’s three sisters and their parents Hans and Myra, he comes to see how dysfunctional they are.  The daughters are all damaged souls:  Gloria is hypersexual and has had a spate of broken marriages; Gloria is addicted to drugs provided by her husband Fritz; Bethany is an anorexic who has made several suicide attempts; and Rachel is hyperlexic, obsessively reading Anne Frank’s Het Achterhuis, and hypergraphic, obsessively writing a diary in a secret language.  Wade accompanies Rachel to South Africa and it’s then that more and more family secrets are revealed, most with Hans at the centre.

The point of view alternates between Wade, Rachel, Rachel’s encoded diary entitled “The Arelliad” written in both prose and poetry, and Hans’ “The Ballad of Clan Van Hout”, a poetic family history which he composes and recites to his daughters.  Reading “The Arelliad” is sometimes frustrating because much is left unexplained.  Who, for example, is “Shadow She, the also-Anne”?  The ballad is also confusing because Hans’ version of events changes and it is difficult to know what to believe.  It does, however, provide great insight into Han’s mind and personality. 

Characterization is a strong element in the novel.  All major characters emerge as distinct.  The four sisters, for instance, cannot be confused.  They often seem to behave in illogical ways, but all is eventually explained.  Rachel’s secret is the last to be uncovered, though I did guess the nature of it.  Certainly the last great revelation explains Rachel’s obsessions.  In case the reader is uncertain as to why she occasionally writes in poetic form, Johnston outlines his reasoning in the Author’s Note at the end of the book. 

Hans will remain for me one of literature’s great villains; more than once I thought of Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello.  He is full of self-pity:  “I’m not the star that I should be because so many worker bees have spent their lives opposing me . . . the great held back by also-rans.”  He doesn’t love his wife, pretending to “adore the woman who so loudly snores, the aging face, the greying head I cannot bear to touch in bed.”  He wishes he “could have another wife” but “I would not sully with divorce what matters most – my name of course.”  He’s a racist who said “’that the blacks were uncivilized and impossible to educate, so they should never be allowed to vote or to mix with whites.’”  He is a master manipulator who accepts no blame for even his most despicable of behaviour.  Some of his comments in his ballad left me speechless.  Yet the reader, like Rachel, will ask, “Was it the sum of his experience that made [him] what he was, or some mechanism in his brain, some defect in his DNA?” 

As the title indicates, the book examines right and wrong.    Hans argues that right and wrong change over time, “The rules are endlessly revised.”  Decisions made by several people at different times in the novel inspire one to consider if a wrong can be a right in certain circumstances.  In order to survive, for instance, is it right to commit a wrong?  As the author admits, he doesn’t offer answers to the questions it poses, but book clubs will find much to debate. 

At over 550 pages, the book is lengthy.  At first the revelations come slowly but then I wondered what other secrets would be revealed.  I was even starting to think that the book was becoming almost unbelievable.  Then the Author’s Note clarifies that the novel is based on people and events in his life.  I was astonished by what Johnston discloses and by his bravery in doing so. 

I highly recommend this book.  Though the pace is sometimes slow and sections are confusing, all is eventually made clear.  And though it touches on many serious topics, it is, as the author states, not a totally dark book.  I’m not certain that I, like one of the book’s characters, can claim to be a “great reader” who reads with “hard-won discrimination,” but I do know this is a book that will reward a second reading:  I’m certain it will make the author’s skill even more obvious. 

Note:  I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of BEWILDERMENT by Richard Powers (New Release)

 4 Stars

The narrator of this novel set in the near-future is Theo Byrne, an astrobiologist.  Widowed, he is raising his nine-year-old son Robin by himself in Madison, Wisconsin.  Robin, variously diagnosed with OCD, Asperger’s, and ADHD, is highly intelligent and sensitive and loves all of nature, though he is socially awkward and has difficulty with anger management.  Instead of psychoactive drugs that many are recommending, Theo opts for experimental neurofeedback treatment to help Robin with emotional control. 

Robin is a character the reader cannot but fall in love with.  He is a young boy “so ingenuous that it rattled his smug classmates.”  His astute observations will have you nodding in agreement.  For example, while waiting in an airport terminal, Theo and his son face a bank of television monitors while everyone receives text alerts from the President, and Robin comments, “Dad?  Know how the training is rewiring my brain?  His wave included all the craziness of the concourse.  This is what’s wiring everybody else.”  He is so attuned to the natural world and the magic of all living things:  “He slowed down for the most banal things.  An ant mound.  A gray squirrel.  An oak leaf on the sidewalk with veins as red as licorice.”  His mother Alyssa was an animal rights activist, and he has become obsessed with species threatened with extinction, and sets out to do what he can to help the cause.  With his father, Robin shares a fascination with the possibilities of life on other planets. 

The plot unravels predictably because reference is made to Flowers for Algernon.  Anyone familiar with the story by Daniel Keyes will know how this book will end.  Bewilderment is, however, more than just a retelling of a classic story.  It is a political and environmental commentary. 

The United States has a Trumpian president who is obsessed with Twitter:  “America, have a look at today’s ECONOMIC numbers!  Absolutely INCREDULOUS!  Together, we will stop the LIES, SILENCE the nay-sayers, and DEFEAT defeatism!!!”  When Robin calls the president a dung beetle, Theo warns him that such criticism can result in a jail sentence.  The separation of powers no longer exists because “Congress itself now took orders from the White House, and the appointed judges had fallen in line.”  Immigration has been stopped with “a private mercenary force deployed on the southern border.”  An election is held but “online conspiracy theories, compromised ballots, and bands of armed poll protesters undermined the integrity of the vote . . . [and] the President declared the entire election invalid.  He ordered a repeat.”  In the re-election, “another wave of irregularities were declared insignificant and the President was named the winner.”  Among so many, one statement especially reminded me so much of the Trump era:  “Everything had happened in broad daylight, and against shamelessness, outrage was impotent.”

The country has become anti-science:  “the chaos-seeking administration had played to the Human Sanctity Crusade, slapped down the environmental movement, pissed on science.”  There is a “Creation Museum and Ark Encounter” because people “had little use for science of any kind.”  Funding is cut “from grade schools that taught evolution.”  There is no interest in space exploration because “Apparently God had made life on one planet only, and only one country of that planet’s dominant species needed to manage it.” 

Climate change has led to a host of problems.  The story begins “on a day that had broken yet another all-time heat record by five degrees.”  “In the record heat, clusters of lethal bacteria were spreading up and down the Florida coast.”  There are other consequences:  “Summer floods throughout the Gulf contaminated the drinking water of thirty million people, spreading hepatitis and salmonellosis across the South.  Heat stress in the Plains and the West was killing old people.  San Bernardino caught fire, and later, Carson City.”  “Fresh water from a dissolving Arctic was flooding into the Atlantic, swirling the protective currents like a hand passed through a smoke plume.”  There’s a Greta Thunberg character, an autistic fourteen-year-old named Inga Alder, who challenges world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation and whom Robin comes to admire. 

Two elements of the book bothered me.  I found my interest waning at the many descriptions of possible exoplanets and the types of life forms that might exist on them.  I was also disturbed by Robin’s whooping in glee at the sight of a heron catching a big fish and eating it. Though I understand the bird is not exploiting or killing the fish unnecessarily, Robin’s cheering seems excessive.  This is the same child who minutes later is frantically tearing down cairns in the stream because they “destroy the homes of everything in the river”?  This is the same child who screams at the accidental killing of a squirrel? 

The book is heart-warming; the love between Theo and his extraordinary son and the things he does to help Robin are very touching.  The book will arouse anger at the damage humankind is inflicting on nonhuman life on the planet.  I shared Robin’s shock at a statistic:  “Only two percent of all animals are wild?  Everything else is factory cows and factory chickens and us?”  And the book will break your heart. I hope sentient life is discovered on other planets, and I hope that that life proves to have done much better looking after its home than we have in caring for Earth.

Bewilderment will leave the reader bewildered at the human race.

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of LEAN FALL STAND by Jon McGregor (New Release)

 4 Stars

The first section of the book (entitled “Lean”) begins in Antarctica where Robert (Doc) Wright is serving as general technical assistant to two young researchers.  An expedition to take photos ends in tragedy.  The second section (entitled “Fall”) focuses on Anna, Robert’s wife, who becomes his primary caregiver as he struggles to recover from a stroke.  The final section (entitled “Stand”) centres on an aphasia support group where people are encouraged to explore different methods of communication in order to tell their stories.

Though the three parts might seem to belong to three different genres, they can all be called survival stories connected by the theme of communication.  In the Antarctica chapter, there is a lot of miscommunication and broken communication because the men hear only snatches of each other’s voices on their radios.  Then Robert’s ability to talk is compromised.  In “Fall” Robert is unable to communicate easily, and Anna is given incomplete information about Robert’s condition and treatment.  In “Stand” we encounter people who are experiencing different types of aphasia and learning other ways of expressing themselves, including non-verbal communication. 

Isolation is also an important element in the three sections.  By virtue of their remote location, the Antarctica team is isolated from the outside world, and events cause the three of them to become physically isolated from each other.  Anna and Robert, accustomed to living apart, are brought together but remain emotionally isolated and struggle to connect.  Everyone in the support group feels isolated because of difficulties communicating with others. 

Readers will probably like different sections of the novel for various reasons, but I found something to admire in all parts.  “Lean” is an adventure story with lots of action and suspense.  It ends with Robert’s stream-of-consciousness which so realistically reflects his fragmented and confused thinking.  What is outstanding in “Fall” is not just Robert’s struggle to adapt to his circumstances but also the impact his situation has on others, especially Anna.  “Stand” for me was the weakest, but it depicts various types of aphasia and offers hope in showing people adapting to a new way of functioning in the world. 

I enjoyed the characterization of Robert and Anna.  Robert is a 30-year veteran of expeditions to Antarctica.  He enjoys the “pure cold blessing of silence” to be found on the southernmost continent, though he spends evenings entertaining the men with “detailed stories about his early seasons at Station K.”  And when he’s home, he talks so much that Anna one time tells him, “Shut the shit up!”  This is the man who finds himself in a position where he has lost the ability to tell his stories and “always had to reach for the words.  As though they’d been put on a high shelf in the stores.  Out of reach.  Or left outside, snowed under, needing to be dug out.”  The traits he needed to survive in the challenging conditions of Antarctica, he has to apply to the challenges of his new life.  In the opening, he serves to provide perspective to a photo, his size illuminating the scope of Antarctica’s vastness.  In the end, he serves to provide a focus on both the enormity of recovery and the immense possibilities.

Like Robert, Anna also enjoys silence; she likes time alone in her garden and attends meetings of the Society of Friends which are held in silence.  Then she is faced with caring for a man who struggles to speak.  Her life is totally upended when Robert comes home.  She is independent and self-sufficient and has become accustomed to living apart from her husband as he spent months of each of the last 30 years in Antarctica.  She is a climate change scientist, but her career has to be put on hold so she can care for her husband.  She admits to a friend that, “’I don’t know if I want him to come home’” and “’I don’t want to be a carer; I never really wanted to be a wife.’”  We see her exhaustion as she helps Robert’s rehabilitation, with little help from social services or their self-absorbed children.  She experiences a gamut of emotions:  resentment, anger, and frustration. 

There is much to unravel in a McGregor novel; his style is sparse, but every word is significant.  If unconventional, thought-provoking literary fiction is what you enjoy, this book should be on your to-be-read pile.

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of AUGUST INTO WINTER by Guy Vanderhaeghe (New Release)

 4 Stars

I’ve always thought of Guy Vanderhaeghe as a master storyteller, and this novel certainly proves that he has not lost his touch, though a decade has passed since the publication of his last novel. 

This book of historical fiction is set in Saskatchewan in 1939; as the title suggests, most of the events take place between August and November.  Ernie Sickert brutally kills an RCMP police officer and thereby sets in motion a series of events with major consequences for several people.  Making his escape, Ernie takes with him 12-year-old Loretta Pipe with whom he is besotted; one character describes “his kicked-in-the-head, dog-eyed adoration, a concentrated distillation of infatuation uncomfortable to witness.”  A policeman in pursuit of Sickert enlists the help of Jack and Oliver Dill, two veterans of World War I.  They make their way to the Clay Top School where they believe Sickert may have sought shelter and where Vidalia Taggart has recently arrived to take up the position of teacher.  The encounters at the school change the lives of all those present. 

Characters are well-developed with detailed backstories.  Vidalia, for instance, is a fiercely independent woman who is grieving the recent death of her married lover in the Spanish Civil War.  Jack is a sensitive man who was scarred by the war; he is subject to religious visions and is obsessed with writing a theological magnum opus.  Oliver (Dill) is a stubborn and impetuous man who returned from the war filled with icy rage.  He describes himself as sharing many traits with his beloved horses:  “Their throbbing energy, their speed, their eye-rolling wariness and unpredictability . . . generosity of spirit.”  He is grieving after the death of his wife Judith, a troubled woman who had befriended Ernie Sickert.  Ernie was born to older parents who had wished to “remain blessedly and blissfully childless" and so ignored or appeased their only son who grew up with “a nose for vulnerability” and to be “a connoisseur of small and extreme cruelties.” 

A major theme is that “You carried the past into the future on your back, its knees and arms hugging you tighter with every step.”  All of the characters are affected by their pasts.  Dill realizes that his wife Judith had been “crippled by experience” and so had hobbled through life.  He is determined not to repeat the errors he feels he made in his marriage.  Loretta is an orphan living with a married sister who has little time and patience for her, so her latching on to Sickert is understandable. 

Certainly the long-lasting destructive effects of war are emphasized; Jack and Dill are different men when they return from the battlefields.  Vidalia’s lover volunteers to fight in Spain and his experiences open his eyes and affect Vidalia when she reads about them in his journal.  As events unfold in Saskatchewan, the world is preparing for war which Dill does not want to hear about because of “the half-truths and lies that are the camp followers of war” and “the pitiless indifference to human misery that is cousin to war.” 

Another theme is that love can be redemptive.  Though Sickert can best be described as a psychopath, his one positive quality is his love for Loretta.  When he perceives that she has been unfairly treated, he is determined to do whatever is necessary to rescue her.  Another character feels dead until love resurrects him.  Dill summarizes, “When Dill thinks of the men, women, and children torn out of each other’s arms and cast adrift in this brutal war, people who ate and slept and worked and played in villages and farms that are names that he cannot pronounce, Dill is certain that the only thing that keeps these people putting one foot in front of the other in a world of starvation, fire, disease, loneliness, and the catastrophes of war is the certainty that if they don’t open their eyes tomorrow, if they don’t trudge on, they will never get home to the ones they love.” 

I love Vanderhaeghe’s writing style.  As the above quotations indicate, his use of language is eloquent.  I appreciate having my vocabulary enlarged:  “the debouchment of the ravine” and “a writer manqué” and “let his bequest to her lie doggo” and “the marriage of phenomenon and noumenon.” 

At almost 500 pages, this is a lengthy book, but it has something for everyone.  There is action, humour, and romance.  My interest did not wane, especially because there is a great deal of suspense.  Sometimes, the suspense is almost unbearable; just as the reader is repeatedly reminded that the world is moving inexorably towards war, the reader also knows that it is inevitable that there will be a cataclysmic encounter at the end. 

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys an interesting tale with memorable characters and thematic depth written with masterful skill. 

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of HARLEM SHUFFLE by Colson Whitehead (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

This crime caper novel full of heists, shakedowns and rip-offs is set in Harlem.  Its three sections, set in 1959, 1961 and 1964, have the protagonist becoming more and more involved in the criminal underworld. 

Ray Carney, a self-made man who owns a furniture store in Harlem, “was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked.”  Though he wants the reputation of an honest purveyor of home furnishings, he does accept goods and jewelry of unknown provenance from his hapless cousin Freddie, a small-time crook.  Though Freddie’s repeated refrain is “’I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,’” he pulls Ray further into criminal activities which bring him into contact with corrupt cops and local crime lords and place him in dangerous situations.  Ray’s father was a hoodlum and, though Ray wants to escape the criminal legacy of his father, “to disavow the crooked inclinations of his nature,” he seems unable to wrest himself from his roots because “the original foundation held him up, unseen in the dirt.”

Initially, it was difficult for me to become interested.  Heist novels are not a favourite genre.  Because I had accepted a galley in return for a review, I persisted and gradually I did become more interested in Ray’s attempts to balance his crooked and straight lives.  His inner conflict is clearly developed:  he wants to have a legitimate, honest business which will allow him to support his family, but financial security evades him despite his education and hard work.  His ambition means the temptation of quick money is difficult to resist.  His love for and loyalty to Freddie who is like a brother to him also makes it difficult to refuse his cousin when he comes pleading for help. 

Ray is a complex character who arouses complicated emotions.  I found myself rooting for him because he wants to better himself and provide for his wife and children whom he loves.  His dreams are thwarted by circumstances; certainly racism challenges his efforts to be an upstanding citizen.  For instance, when he wants to be licensed to sell a particular line of furniture, he is told, “’We don’t cater to Negro gentlemen.’”  When he wants to join a Black social club to make contacts, he knows he will not be accepted because he is too dark.  Civil rights protests and riots endanger his business:  “Carney knew firsthand how hard it was for a Negro shopkeeper to persuade an insurance company to write a policy.  The vandalism and looting had wiped out a lot of people.  Whole livelihoods gone, like that.”  Ray has so much stacked against him.

On the other hand, I found myself becoming impatient and frustrated with Ray.  His brotherly loyalty to Freddie is admirable at first, and I feel sorry for his being dragged into Freddie’s schemes.  However, when Freddie’s escapades endanger Ray’s family, it’s time for Ray to stop “plotting a safe route of travel for his cousin” and bailing him out.  What happens to Freddie is inevitable, and Ray should have stepped away sooner:  “How long do you keep trying to save something that has been lost?”  The novel’s second section focuses on Ray’s desire for revenge and that certainly stripped away my sympathy for him.  When Ray’s financial situation improves, especially after Elizabeth returns to work, so that he doesn’t really need to continue his crooked dealings, he persists, admitting “He was no longer a mere errand boy for uptown crooks but a proper middleman.” 

Ray’s relationship with Elizabeth left me puzzled.  We are not given her perspective, but Ray seems to believe that his wife knows nothing about his underworld activities.  For instance, he thinks, “Elizabeth would leave his ass in a second when she found out about his crooked side.  Call the cops herself if thugs came knocking.”  He often leaves the house in the middle of the night, “keeping crooked hours,” and she suspects nothing?

The book has a very strong sense of place.  Harlem with its culture and politics comes alive.  Whitehead describes “The black city and the white city:  overlapping, ignorant of each other, separate and connected by tracks.”  Certainly the criminal underworld and the legitimate world intersect.

I have read Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys.  Though I preferred them to Harlem Shuffle, that is not to say that this latest novel is not worth reading. 

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THE HERON'S CRY by Ann Cleeves (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

This is the second installment of the Two Rivers series set in North Devon where the Taw and Torridge rivers converge and empty into the Atlantic. 

The investigative team of DI Matthew Venn, DS Jen Rafferty, and DC Ross May are initially faced with the murder of Nigel Yeo.  He was killed by a shard of glass from a vase made by his daughter Eve, a glassblower.  Nigel was investigating patients’ complaints about care received from the health system, in particular whether the death by suicide of a young man could have been prevented; Matthew suspects the motive for Nigel’s death may lie in something he discovered in the course of his probing.  Then a second, virtually identical, murder occurs.  It not only complicates the investigation but also ramps up the pressure on the team to find the murderer. 

The investigation is interesting and the reader will be kept guessing.  There are twists and turns, especially when a suicide muddies the picture.  I wish there had been fewer subplots – and fewer dead bodies – and more focus on the two obviously connected deaths.  The resolution isn’t totally convincing; the killer’s motive works initially but is less persuasive subsequently.   

What I enjoyed most is the character development.  Jen struggles to find a work-family balance.  Matthew works at becoming less rigid and even tries mending his relationship with his mother.  Ross continues to be annoying; he wants to be like his mentor with “his determination not to be cowed, to get what he wanted.”  He coerces his wife into having a drink with him because he senses some tension in her, but then he keeps “a seed of anger in his mind, because he was her husband, and she shouldn’t have made him feel like that, so anxious and so impotent.  So needy.”  At the end, there is a hint that he has realized some of his shortcomings, but since we do not see him afterwards, there is no proof that he has indeed had an epiphany. 

Characters from the first novel, The Long Call, reappear.  Jonathan, Matthew’s husband, becomes involved, but also Lucy Braddick who played an important role in the first book.  I would advise readers to read The Long Call first because the background provided will add to the enjoyment of the second book.

I ended my review of The Long Call by stating, “There is little to distinguish this book from a standard murder mystery.  The element that might entice me to read the next installment is the characters and the relationships among those characters.”  These comments are also an apt ending for my review of The Heron’s Cry.

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of NO HONOUR by Awais Khan

 4 Stars

Potential readers should be forewarned that this novel is often shocking and disturbing because of its subject matter.  For instance, it opens with an honour killing, a barbaric practice which still continues, especially in Pakistan which, according to Human Rights Watch, has the highest number of honour killings per capita in the world, about 1,000 per year. 

Sixteen-year-old Abida falls in love with Kalim and becomes pregnant.  The penalty for pregnancy outside of marriage, as designated by the traditional tribal council of her small rural Pakistani village, is death.  Abida is able to escape to Lahore with her lover where she hopes for a better life.  Lahore, however, is not a haven, rife as it is with poverty, the drug and sex trades, violence, and institutional corruption.  When Abida’s family stops hearing from her, her father Jamil sets off to find her, but he too faces dangers.  Will he be able to find Abida and keep her safe?

The novel provides two alternating perspectives, that of Abida and that of her father.  Because of this narrative structure, the reader knows what has happened to Abida; as her situation becomes more dire, the reader wonders whether Jamil will be able to rescue her.  The level of suspense becomes almost unbearable at times. 

Abida is a dynamic character.  At sixteen years of age, she behaves like a typical teenager in many respects.  For instance, she whines, “It was as if she had been born to be a slave, to work without any reward.  She didn’t dare admit it to herself, but there were times when she wished her family dead, just so she could finally be free.”  Like many adolescents, she rebels and lets her passions overrule her reason.  Her experiences teach her how love, courage, and hope will help her survive.   

Jamil also changes, and his transformation is heartwarming.  Though raised by a strong, independent mother, he quietly follows the dictates of the judgmental, misogynistic society in which he lives.  He even occasionally shakes his wife if she irritates him in some way.   He does however have difficulty accepting that he must allow his daughter to die in order to restore his family honour.  The possible loss of his beloved firstborn child gives him the strength and courage to stand up against age-old prejudices. He decides that love matters more than honour.

The book is not flawless.  Kalim’s change, for instance, seems to happen very quickly.  Even his wife is confused:  at one point, she thinks about “his gradual transformation” but then later she concludes he “had withered right in front of her eyes, quickly turning into a monster.”  Then there’s a man who wants to marry a woman he has never seen?  The explanation given is that “’Sahab has been interested in you for quite some time.  Ever since Apa Ji told him about you.’”  Given the woman’s situation, wouldn’t Sahab have made a point of meeting her beforehand?  A drug lord who routinely bribes the police would worry more about being arrested for adultery than for selling drugs? 

These weaknesses, however, are minor when compared to the novel’s strengths.  It sheds light on the oppressive treatment of girls and women in societies which consider females valueless.  The reader cannot but be emotionally engaged.  Anyone who is not angered or saddened by what happens to Abida and other women is heartless.  And the description of Shah Doli’s Rats is horrifying and heart-breaking.

This novel is so relevant.  The practices described continue to this day; despite legal reforms, honour killings continue in Pakistan because it is a patriarchal society and police and prosecutors often ignore such murders.  And Pakistan is not the only country which has seen this practice:  it is estimated that 5,000 honour killings occur around the world each year.  Even liberal countries like Canada have had instances of it.  And as I write this review, Afghanistan, Pakistan’s neighbour, has fallen to the Taliban which bans women from education and employment and is notorious for violence against women. 

This book is not an easy read; it is, to say the least, uncomfortable and unsettling.  It should, however, be on everyone’s must-read list. 

Note:  I received a digital copy of this novel from Orenda Books in return for an honest review.