Apeirogon by Colum McCann

Apeirogon by Colum McCann
Read by Colum McCann
Published February 2020 by Random House
Source: my audiobook copy from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of intractable conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to take to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend. Theirs is a life in which children from both sides of the wall throw stones at one another. But their worlds shift irreparably when ten-year-old old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet meant to quell unruly crowds, and again when thirteen-year-old Smadar becomes the victim of suicide bombers.

When Bassam and Rami learn one another's stories and the loss that connects them, they become part of a much larger tale that ranges over centuries and continents. Apeirogon is a novel that balances on the knife edge of fiction and nonfiction. Bassam and Rami are real men and their actual words are a part of this narrative, one that builds through thousands of moments and images into one grand, unforgettable crescendo


My Thoughts:
I had no idea what this book was about when I downloaded it; it was Colum McCann and that was all I needed to know. And now I don't know how to tell you about this book other than to say that it is incredible. So I'm just going to share with you some of my notes:

• The Guardian says you don't so much read Apeirogon as feel it. I concur; as I was listening, I got angry, sad, frustrated, and hopeful. 
• This bookends the novel: "Beyond right and wrong, there is a field. Meet us there." It is perfect. 
• In a nod to the One Thousand and One Nights, there are 1001 chapters in this book. Many are simply a sentence which are astonishingly impactful. Many are, apparently, blank pages which, of course, I missed listening to the book. 
• Abdel Wael Zwaiter was the first Palestinian assassinated by Mossad as part of the retaliation for the killings of Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics. At the time of his death he was in the process of translating the One Thousand and One Nights into Italian. This is only one of the many recurrent images and themes in the book.
• Birds and music play recurring roles in the book. 
• One person who makes a recurring appearance in the book is then U. S. Senator John Kerrey. Aramin met with Kerrey with the sole intent of saying "You killed my daughter." Kerrey was not insulted; he didn't rush Aramin out of the office or respond with hollow words of sympathy. In fact, Kerrey was remarkably understanding.
• McCann makes use of a lot of repetition. This gives the book a poetic feel.
• While the book theoretically takes place over one day, McCann moves back and forth in time, telling both of the men's stories and the stories of their daughters' deaths. He also gives us background on the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis. The fact that the mens' stories are not told in a straight line actually makes it easier to keep track of what's going on. 

If ever there were two men who should not have become friends, Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan are those men. Aramin was tortured after being imprisoned for throwing rocks; both men lost their young daughters to the conflict. And yet they first formed a friendship and then joined a group of other parents who had also lost children. They speak of their experience trying to help others find a way past their hatred, to find a way to live with the idea that there may not be a wrong side and a right side. But beyond those there is a field. Meet us there, they ask. 

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Narrated by Mohsin Hamid
Published March 2017 by Penguin Publishing Group
Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . .

Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are.

My Thoughts:
Mohsin Hamid is always inventive with his writing, with a singular voice. He tells stories about people most Americans don’t know about, lives we can’t imagine. There is always something to be learned from his books, a new way to look at the world. In Exit West, Hamid focuses on the lives of refugees in the various places they find themselves, not on their journeys, which we know are perilous. What is life like in the camps? How does life change depending on the country they find themselves in? What changes when the refugee community starts to change the balance in the areas where they're located? I seriously always feel smarter when I finish one of Hamid's books.

“It might seem odd that in cities teetering at the edge of the abyss young people still go to class—in this case an evening class on corporate identity and product branding—but that is the way of things, with cities as with life, for one moment we are puttering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying, and our eternally impending ending does not put a stop to our transient beginnings and middles until the instant when it does.”? 

One of the things that really got me thinking in Exit West was Nadia's wearing of an abaya, despite being an independent, modern woman who isn't religious. Nadia doesn't wear an abaya for religious reasons, nor for modesty. She chooses to wear an abaya as a barrier, particularly to keep men from bothering her. It's her choice. Which makes me wonder how many of the women I've seen wearing abaya's are doing less because it's required and more because it is their choice. In this day and age of #MeToo, it's interesting to consider that some women may just decide it's easier to hide from men.

Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist blew me away. I wanted this one to do the same. It did, after all, appear on many "best of" lists for 2017. But, whereas Fundamentalist built to an ending that left me sort of stunned, this one  just left me sad. Hamid doesn’t do happy endings; I’ve certainly learned that by now. So I suppose I might have suspected where this book was going and I'm not sure where I wouldn't have wanted him to go with the story. Still...

Hamid always narrates his books and his reading style mirrors his writing style perfectly. I’ve grown used to it; but, when I tried to listen to the book with my husband, he found the book really odd which I felt was mostly due to Hamid’s detached, flat style. Listening may not be for everyone. But books like Exit West should be.

Instant City by Steve Inskeep

Instant City: Life and Death In Karachi by Steve Inskeep
304 pages
Published October 2011 by Penguin Group
Source: the publisher and TLC Book Tours

On December 28, 2009 a bomb blew up on the streets of Karachi, Pakistan as Shia Muslims marched in their annual Ashura procession marking the death long ago of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson, Hussein.  Who placed the bomb? Who set the fires that destroyed blocks of nearby buildings the same day? In most cities, this would be a day that would long be remembered for its violence. For Karachi, it has almost become par for the course.

Inskeep uses the events of this day to look at the larger problem that is the instability in the country of Pakistan, most visibly in Karachi, which Inskeep calls an "instant city." He defines "instant city" as "a metropolitan area that's grown since 1945 at a substantially higher rate than the population of the country in which it belongs." According to conservative estimates, Karachi has grown at least 30 times larger than it was in 1945, most of the grow occurring in the weeks following the partition of India into two countries, India and Pakistan.

Using December 28, 2009 as a way of exploring the greater problems plaguing Karachi and Pakistant, Inskeep introduces his readers to a number of people, past and present, those who influenced Pakistan as it grew following Partition and those who were present the day of the bombing. Historically Inskeep looks at the divide between the sects of Islam, the friction between India's majority Hindu population and Pakistan's majority Muslim population, and the rifts between ethnicities and classes.

When I was approached about this book, I jumped at the chance primarily because I so enjoy listening to Steve Inskeep on NPR. The fact that it deals with a part of the world that fascinates me and that it fits with my goal of reading more non-fiction this year sealed the deal. Inskeep does not disappoint. By using the one event to tie all of issues that plague Karachi together and by introducing so many people involved that day, Inskeep has developed this work of non-fiction into something resembling a mystery that pulls the reader through the book in search of answers. In his debut novel, Inskeep exhibits the same mix of journalism and storytelling that I appreciate in this radio work. In his skilled hands, Karachi comes alive.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour! For more thoughts on this book, check out the full tour.

The Girl In The Garden by Kamala Nair

The Girl In The Garden by Kamala Nair
320 pages
Published June 2011 by Grand Central Publishing

As her wedding day draws near, Rakhee Singh leaves her fiance a long letter and her engagement ring and makes her way to India to come to terms with something she has been keeping secret from her fiance, something that has been causing Rakhee pain since the summer when she was ten years old.

That summer Rakhee's mother began receiving mysterious letters from India, letters that seemed to affect her parents' relationship, letters that seem to have convinced her mother not to take the pills that made her a happier person. As isolated and alone as Rakhee feels in small town Minnesota, she is not at all happy when her mother announces that the two of them will be traveling to India for the summer.

Once they arrived in India, however, Rakhee became completely absorbed in life in the small village where her mother's family has lived for generations. In Malanad, Rakhee's family, the Varmas are highly respected and live in the biggest house. Rakhee immediately noticed, however, that everything in the house appeared to be a little shabby and the hospital that her family owns was being operated by a man, Dev, Rakhee instinctively disliked.

The longer Rakhee was in Malanad, the more questions she had. What was  going on with the hospital and what hold did Dev have over the family? Who was the "old family friend," Prem, who seems to be the only person who could make Rakhee's mother happy? Why did the family seem to blame Rakhee's mother for their problems?  But most importantly, what is the secret of the forest behind the family's home? The cousins had been told that a rakshasi (a she-demon) lived and that only adults were allowed to go into the forest to make offerings. But Rakhee did not believe in things like she-demons and when she saw her mother and aunt go into the forest late one night she became determined to discover the truth for herself. When she did, everything changed.

Is it possible that there just is not a book set in India that I will not like? Once again, I have found myself utterly engrossed by a book set in this country. Library Journal calls The Girl In The Garden a cross between Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden and Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. Nair has clearly drawn inspiration from both but she has certainly crafted a work that is utterly her own (**tomorrow the story of the inspiration for this novel**).

"They were washing the clothes in the river, roughly and efficiently, then standing and slapping them dry on rocks. Each time they brought a piece of cloth down upon the rock it made a resilient thwack. It was almost a dance; the women in their stained, monochromatic saris, their prematurely graying hair pulled back into frazzled buns, crouching, washing, standing and beating, the rhythm of their movements imbued with a surprising grace."

India comes alive in Nair's hands; while I was reading, I completely forgot my own surroundings. Book clubs would find much to talk about with this book; the many ways Nair explores love alone would make for a lively discussion. Family relationships, guilt, shame, responsibility...all included as well.

Thrity Umrigar, author of The Space Between Us, calls The Girl In The Garden "an impressive debut." It certainly is.