The three girls have a summer of adventure, self-discovery, and sensual exploration. Maya has run away from a home life that is increasingly not just strict, but oppressive and even emotionally abusive. Hashi operates a beauty salon out of a portion of their house.Īll four have a summer of discovery and upheaval ahead of them.Įlla comes home from college to find Charu's friend Maya, daughter of a local Muslim cleric, asleep in her bed. Anwar runs Anwar's Apothecary, selling herbal health and beauty products which he makes himself. Ella is in college now Charu has just graduated high school and will start college in the fall. The difference, of course, is that this family are Muslims from Bangladesh.Īnwar and Hashi Saleem have built a good life in Brooklyn, where they have raised their daughter Charu and their orphaned niece Ella-daughter of Hashi's brother and his wife, murdered by old enemies from the war years. Immigrant parents, American children, family left behind in the old country, old family issues that didn't disappear because they moved away. This is a really engrossing immigrant family drama, parts of which feel very familiar, not that different from the experiences of my mother's family. To keep his family from unraveling, Anwar takes them on a fated trip to Bangladesh, to reckon with the past, their extended family, and each other. But when tragedy strikes, the Saleems find themselves blamed. One summer, when Ella returns home from college, she discovers Charu’s friend Maya-an Islamic cleric’s runaway daughter-asleep in her bedroom.Īs the girls have a summer of clandestine adventure and sexual awakenings, Anwar-owner of a popular botanical apothecary-has his own secrets, threatening his thirty-year marriage. She traveled from Bangladesh to Brooklyn to live with the Saleems: her uncle Anwar, aunt Hashi, and their beautiful daughter, Charu, her complete opposite. Orphaned as a child after her parents’ murder, and afflicted with hallucinations at dusk, she’s always felt more at ease in nature than with people. “A Brooklyn-by-way-of-Bangladesh Royal Tenenbaums.”- The Denver PostĪ vibrant debut novel, set in Brooklyn and Bangladesh, follows three young women and one family struggling to make peace with secrets and their pastįor as long as she can remember, Ella has longed to feel at home. ONE OF THE CUT’S 13 BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS CELEBRATING PRIDE MONTH
Named a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award
0 kommentar(er)
