The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam

Published by Harper on August 2, 2011

The Good Muslim is the second novel of a trilogy -- something I probably should have known before I began reading this one. Although the novel stands on its own, it makes frequent references to characters and events that would have been more familiar to me had I read A Golden Age first.

The novel takes place in Bangladesh in the 1980s, with frequent flashbacks to the early 1970s. To some extent, two stories from the two different times are told in parallel: Maya's recent return to her home in Dhaka after years of providing medical services to village women -- including abortions for those who were sexually assaulted -- in other parts of the country; and her brother Sohail's earlier arrival home after fighting in the country's war for independence. Maya is nonetheless the novel's focal point. She left Dhaka after Sohail's return, when Sohail made a public display of burning his books. She comes back at about the time her mother becomes ill.

After the war ends, Sohail begins to study the Quran that his mother gave him. For reasons the reader does not learn until the last chapters, Sohail takes the holy book to heart. When Maya, weary of listening to Sohail proclaim the book's greatness, tells her mother that Sohail is going to turn her house into a mosque, Rehana replies: "Don't be so frightened of it. It's only religion." A question The Good Muslim asks, I think, is whether we should be frightened of religion, or only of the dangerous zealots who pervert its teachings. Maya is clearly skeptical of religion itself; she resists its power to change people at their core.

Sohail begins to deliver sermons from his rooftop. Initially Sohail preaches about "the many faces of God," suggesting his openness to all religions (even to the gods of the ancient Greeks), but as time passes his words become less inclusive: "There was only one. One message. One Book. The world narrowed. Curtains between men and women. Lines drawn in the sand." As he continues to preach and gains a following, Sohail loses touch with his mother and neglects his son's welfare before sending his son, Zaid, to a madrasa on the other side of the country. Sohail has become too righteous and self-involved to deal with the mundane demands of parenthood. It eventually falls to Maya to look out for Zaid, particularly after Zaid runs away from (and is sent back to) the madrasa.

Some aspects of the novel are more effective than others. I found it difficult to muster interest in Maya's budding romance with Sohail's friend Joy (a recent returnee to Bangladesh who drove a cab and provided home care in New York) or in her relationship with Sohail's bright, talented (but larcenous) son. Given his importance to the story, Zaid should be a more fully developed character; we see snippets of his life but he lacks fullness. The same could be said of Joy who, while imprisoned during the war, loses a finger to prison guards after an experience that has an almost mystical quality. Perhaps Tahmima Anam was trying to create a moment of light in a dark time but Joy's experience just doesn't ring true. There's also a mystical (perhaps miraculous is a better word) element to the story involving Maya's mother that I found difficult to accept. In what I think is the novel's weakest moment, Sohail's religious fervor and Maya's faith in medicine intersect over their mother's illness, leaving Maya to question her well-formed beliefs.

In addition to the mother's illness, other aspects of the story struck me as artificial. The reason that Sohail becomes a "good Muslim," revealed near the novel's end, and the events that ensnare Maya and Zaid in the closing pages, are unconvincing. The last chapter and the epilog come close to melodrama. I was left with the feeling that I'd read a carefully constructed story, a story designed to pull emotions from me that I just didn't feel.

Despite these weaknesses, The Good Muslim has much to recommend it. There are some electrifying moments in this novel, often centered on the hardships that Bangladeshi women endure. Anam's prose is mesmerizing. Parts of the novel are captivating and its cautionary tale of religious zeal has value. I think sometimes Anam tries too hard to make a point and obscures it in the process, but the novel is worth reading for its shining moments.

RECOMMENDED

One Man, One Murder by Jakob Arjouni

Frist published in Germany in 1991; published in English by Melville House on June 7, 2011

Wikipedia tells me that Jakob Arjouni is a German writer and that One Man, One Murder (originally published in 1991 as Ein Mann, ein Mord) is the third of four novels featuring the Frankfurt detective Kemal Kayankaya. I haven't read the first two but I don't think my lack of familiarity with the series hindered my enjoyment of this one.

The story takes place in 1989. In the tradition of noir private eyes, Kayankaya is wondering how to pay the rent on his ratty office when a client walks through the door. Manuel Weidenbusch has fallen in love with a Thai woman, has paid her debt to release her from the "club" that employs her, and has paid an additional sum for a forged passport to keep her in the country after her visa expires. The phony passport purveyor has apparently kidnapped Sri Dao Rakdee; hence Weidenbusch's need for Kayankaya's services.

Kayankaya's investigation takes him to the brothel where Sri Dao Rakdee was working off her debt, to unhelpful immigration authorities, to a refugee organization, to a cabaret, to jail, and to a dead body. Before bringing the investigation to a satisfying conclusion, Kayankaya encounters, and makes fun of, a number of racial purists who view the good old days of German nationalism with nostalgia. Although he's a German citizen, Kayankaya's parents are Turks and he's viewed with suspicion by many of his fellow Germans. Kayankaya has a cheeky, anti-authoritarian attitude that shines when he confronts police officers, immigration officials, and paper-pushers in the civil service.

The novel delivers an intelligent take on illegal immigration in Germany without being preachy. Some readers object to political discussions in novels; those readers might want to give this one a pass. Politics is overshadowed by plot, however, and although he's an advocate for the underdog and takes care of his friends, Kayankaya isn't what you'd call a liberal do-gooder. He fits the mold of the anti-hero: he's irreverent and hard-headed and doesn't have any great belief in justice (at least, not of the law-and-order variety), yet he has his own kind of honor, a dogged determination to dig up the unpleasant truths that corrupt officials and illicit businessmen would prefer to keep buried.

Lesser writers should take lessons from Arjouni. His prose is efficient; no words are wasted in this brief novel. He avoids clichés and his dialog is both realistic and acid-tinged. Still, Arjouni isn't so minimalist that he forgets the necessities of good fiction: he creates atmosphere by painting colorful images of a drab city, and he gives his characters personality without resorting to stereotypes. He keeps his intelligent plot moving at a brisk pace. Arjouni reminds me of Joe Gores, an American writer of detective fiction whose work exhibits the same admirable qualities. Arjouni adds a bit of social realism to the mix, giving One Man, One Murder an added dimension that I appreciated. Fans of hard-boiled detective fiction should enjoy this novel as much as I did.

RECOMMENDED

The Samaritan by Stephen Besecker

Published by Bancroft Press on June 24, 2011

The Samaritan begins with an assassination.  As in many similar thrillers, the reader is given a lovingly detailed description of the assassin’s weapon and accessories, clothing, preparation, surroundings, breathing, patience, and discipline.  It is too familiar to constitute a promising start.

The assassination -- of a crime family boss -- takes place in the prologue.  The novel’s first section takes place before the assassination.  The set-up occurs in chapter two with the deaths of two upscale sisters who are drinking in a downscale bar in the Bronx.  When two young mobsters try to shake down the bartender, one of the women (a Broadway director) rather improbably starts the carnage by grabbing the mobster’s gun.  Her soon-to-be-dead sister turns out to be married to Kevin “Hatch” Easter, a CIA field operative the reader meets in chapter one.  Most of part one is about Hatch grieving his wife’s death and bonding with CIA hit man Gray Taylor.

Part two takes place after the assassination.  Predictably enough, more killings follow as a character identified only as “the hunter” orchestrates an unlikely plan to have all the bad guys in New York (mobsters and gang bangers and crooked cops) wage war against each other as part of a vendetta arising out of the sisters’ deaths.  The growing body count disturbs Hatch’s CIA boss who thinks Hatch might be behind it.  He asks Taylor to get involved.  The novel’s hook is the mystery of “the hunter’s” identity:  is it Hatch, or Hatch’s brother, or someone acting on Hatch’s behalf, or someone else entirely?  Stephen Besecker engages in the misdirection one would expect in a mystery/thriller, but doesn’t plant the kind of clues that would allow an astute reader to identify “the hunter.”  The mystery’s resolution is too nonsensical to be shocking, too contrived to have the impact that Besecker intended. 

Entirely too much of The Samaritan goes unexplained, probably because no plausible explanation could be concocted.  Besecker’s characters apparently have the ability to walk through walls; they enter secure areas undetected but we never see how they do it.  Nor do we learn how they are able to eavesdrop on both sides of encrypted conversations.  The CIA’s involvement in this mess is ludicrous, as is its supposed cooperation with another federal agency -- it just wouldn’t happen as Besecker describes it.  In fact, the novel begins with Hatch assigned to a mission that might be of interest to the Justice Department but not to the CIA.  The story circles back around to that mission in the last chapter without ever offering a credible explanation of the CIA’s involvement in it.  That’s just one of many instances in which the novel requires the reader to put common sense on hold and to ignore gaping plot holes.

The characters are equally difficult to believe.  Nearly every character in the novel is the TV version of the real thing.  The organized crime characters, from their nicknames to their speech and mannerisms, seem like second-string mobsters from The Sopranos.  Particularly fanciful is the CIA assassin who gets hit on by Mick Jagger’s girlfriend at Yoko Ono’s parties.  Some of this could be forgiven if the writing were of a higher quality, but this isn’t a novel you’ll want to seek out for its scintillating prose.  Besecker’s dialog is weak; except for the aforementioned mobsters, every character -- from cops to spies to hookers to dealers to Howie Long -- speaks in the same voice.  It’s never a believable voice.

The only positive I can cite is the novel’s pace.  It’s a quick, easy read.  For that reason, some readers will probably like it.  I didn’t and I can’t recommend it.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

Published by Spiegel & Grau on July 26, 2011

War stories cover familiar ground. Men go to war; some don't return. Those who don't die come back changed. Next to Love tells that story with a twist: its focus is not on the men who go to war but on the wives and lovers left behind. They furnish the novel's perspective on war's casualties: we see their reactions to husbands' deaths and to the erosion of the souls they once knew. The women in the novel are hard hit by war; dozens of the men in their town storm the beaches on D-Day and many die. As the book continues into the 1950s, the novel reflects postwar America in microcosm: the nascent civil rights movement, the baby boom, the displacement of women from the workforce and the blossoming of -- if not feminism -- a growing feeling of discontent on the part of women who are expected to make babies and martinis and leave everything else to men.

Babe Huggins grew up on the wrong side of a small town, about ninety miles from Boston. The nation has gone to war and women (including Babe's friends Grace and Millie) are marrying (and getting pregnant by) men who will soon return to battle. Babe is not married to Claude when she discovers the longstanding relationship between sex and war but she loves him and lives in fear of his death. Babe is an independent, unconventional thinker but she worries about how other women regard her. Knowing them to be hypocrites, she nonetheless judges herself by their standards and (rather unfairly) finds herself wanting. Her story --as it develops over the course of many years -- is one of pain that induces growth.

Millie and Grace have their own stories, yet as important as they are to the novel, the book belongs to Babe. Millie and Grace focus their lives on being good wives and mothers. They are not untouched by the exterior world (one experiences the indirect effects of religious prejudice, the other begins to question her new husband's true nature) but they are content to usher in the 1950s with its illusion of perfect families, stay-at-home moms, and devoted husbands. Only Babe seems to recognize that the national promise of equality for all Americans remains unfulfilled. Only Babe misses the role she played during the war, small though it was, when she held a job and believed in a cause. By the mid-1950s, Babe is "grieving for her own life ... she is, in some way she does not understand, broken."

The novel's biggest flaw, I think, is that Ellen Feldman tries to cover too much ground in too few pages. Millie's story seems artificial, as if Feldman felt the need to dream up a problem for her so that she'd fit in with the other characters. Relatively late in the novel, Feldman gives stories to the children of Grace and Millie. Those stories feel unfinished, probably because the kids' lives are just beginning while the novel is nearing its end. The story surrounding Millie's son Jack contributes to the novel's themes while the one involving Grace's daughter Amy adds little.

To some extent, the novel is populated with stereotypes, or at least with characters we've seen many times before: the small town gossips; the man who resents every soldier who came home from the war in which his son died; the girl whose thoughts are elsewhere as she loses her virginity to a boy who is clearly using her. Occasional scenes are a bit overdone or clichéd (a discharged soldier hiding under a bed at the sound of celebratory gunfire was one) but those are rare. There are also times when the story lacks subtlety, as if Feldman felt the need to make a social evil as obvious as she could so it wouldn't escape the notice of dim readers.

Despite its flaws, this is a strong novel. Feldman writes movingly of grief. She writes perceptively of social change. Her prose is fluid and evocative. She tells an important story that is well worth reading.

RECOMMENDED

Walking to Hollywood by Will Self

First published in the UK in 2010; published in the US by Grove Press on May 3, 2011

Walking to Hollywood is the kind of novel that usually annoys me: the writer is a character in the book, interacting with others who exist in the real world. Novels of that ilk usually come across as self-indulgent acts of conceit, no matter how self-deprecating the author manages to be. After a promising start, this one proved to be no exception.

Each of the novel's three sections portrays Will Self as suffering from a mental disorder. Self managed to win me over in the hilarious first section, in which his fictional alter-ego is obsessive-compulsive to a fault. Lost in Self's maddening prose, I never stopped being entertained for long enough to become annoyed. Among other coping strategies, Self takes photographs "to confirm that the world and I were continuing to coincide." The book reproduces photographs that (for the most part) correlate with the surrounding text -- very artful pictures to my admittedly untrained eye (the exception being the photo that showed way more of the male anatomy than I cared to see). I particularly liked Self's (presumably) fictional friend Sherman Oaks, a three foot tall artist who creates larger than life-size sculptures of his own body. All of this was quite funny and I would have been happy if the novel had ended there. Unfortunately, it didn't.

In the novel's second section, Self is psychotic. Self tells his therapist that he wants to write a book about "who killed film -- for film is definitely dead, toppled from its reign as the pre-eminent narrative medium of the age." His investigative methodology involves walking from LAX to Hollywood. Self often sees himself as playing a part in a movie -- in fact, through most of the book, he thinks he is a character being played by Pete Postlethwaite or (more to his liking) David Thewlis. Others seem to think so too. When Self visits his artistic friends, they are also being played by actors (Bret Easton Ellis is played by "mid-period Orson Welles"). Self decides that the walk should be filmed so a small crew accompanies him on his journey (or so he believes). A crew member, hearing that this was to be "a subversive take on Hollywood consisting of a continuous take of him walking around Los Angeles for a week," observes that "it wouldn't add up to anything." I can't summarize my reaction to the book any more succinctly than that.

Self uses the bulk of part two to make fun of Los Angeles (Hollywood in particular). Hollywood is such an easy and frequent target that it hardly seems worthy of Self's talent. In addition to all things Hollywood, Self's satire attaches itself to multiple, seemingly random targets, including Google employees, art, advertising, architecture, e-commerce, writers, and mobile phone users. There were times when I lost the story, or the story lost me ... times when I had to ask questions like "How did Scooby Doo and Daniel Craig enter into the story and why is everybody fighting?" While some of this is fun, Self tries too hard to be fashionable and witty; in those (too frequent) moments the novel becomes tedious, particularly when Self drops the names of the various actors, directors, and writers he knows, none of whom make an interesting contribution to the story. At other times the novel reads like the description of an acid-induced fantasy; some of those passages are funny, others are too strange or too nonsensical to register on my humor meter. From time to time Self seemed to be writing in-jokes for a crowd I have not been invited to join.

Part two ends after Self completes his trip to Hollywood. I was hoping part three would redeem the novel (at least partially) by restoring the magic of part one. Sadly, part three was only marginally better than part two. Self recognizes and even mocks his self-indulgence when he writes that he "remained sunk deep in my own solipsism" during his stroll through Hollywood. Failing to learn from this insight, Self's "morbid self-absorption" underlies part three just as deeply as it did part two (I didn't need to know, for instance, that espresso makes his bowels liquefy). This time he decides to take a forty mile hike on the Holderness coast. The trip is hampered by Self's frequent inability to remember who he is -- his disorder du jour is Alzheimer's. His descriptions of the local characters he encounters and his rendering of their accents provides an occasional chuckle but fails to rise to the comedic level established in part one. I struggled to finish and was grateful for the photographs that broke up the text and helped speed the way to the end.

NOT RECOMMENDED