Homeland elegies

Akhtar (American Dervish, 2012), whose many honors include a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, confronts issues of race, money, family, politics, and sexuality in a bold, memoiristic tale about a young Pakistani American before and after 9/11. This is not truly a "novel" in the usual sense, but rather a series of linked short stories reflecting on Akhtar's experiences as the child of Muslim immigrants, a writer, and an intellectual questioning his place in American society. A common thread is his relationship with his father, Sikander, initially a superfan of Donald Trump and all things American, and his growing disillusionment with his adopted country. Akhtar's mother, homesick for Pakistan and critical of American materialism, presents a quiet rebuke to his father's hyperpatriotism, as do various Pakistani relatives and family friends. As Akhtar comes of age, he interacts with an array of fascinating characters with different insights into the American character: an anti-capitalist literature professor, a Pakistani hedge-fund billionaire determined to become the Muslim Sheldon Adelson, and an African American Republican who wants to defund the racist government. Money, and the debasement of other values, is a defining element of Akhtar's relationship with his writing and his father, while the crude racism unleashed by 9/11 prods them both to question whether America can ever truly be their home.

Akhtar (American Dervish) reckons with the promises and deceptions of the American dream in this wrenching work of autofiction. The narrator, Ayad, was, like the author, born in Staten Island to Pakistani immigrant parents and raised in Wisconsin, and wrote a Pulitzer-winning play. In eight well-developed chapters structured as musical movements, starting with an overture and ending with a coda, Ayad traces his often complicated personal, philosophical, and political stance toward an America in which he sees himself as "other." In the process, Ayad responds to criticism of his past writings for rationalizing violence committed by Muslims; critiques capitalism while acknowledging how it benefits him; and confronts his own internalized conflation of race and sex. Most often, these issues are viewed through the lens of family, especially his parents. His mother is chronically homesick not only for her native Pakistan but also for her first love. By contrast, his father, a doctor slammed with a malpractice suit, finds his shortsighted optimism and eventual disillusionment with the American promise play out against the backdrop of the first two years of Trump's presidency in a pair of stories--one broadly humorous, one heartbreaking--that open and close the book. Akhtar's work is a provocative and urgent examination of the political and economic conditions that shape personal identity, especially for immigrants and communities of color. With an audacious channeling of Philip Roth's warts-and-all approach to the story of an American writer and his family, this tragicomedy is a revelation. Agent: Julie Barer, the Book Group. (Sept.)

This achingly intimate novel-cum-memoir from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Akhtar (Disgraced) searingly explores the existential questions consuming immigrants in the United States, a task he began with his debut novel, American Dervish. They're asked where their loyalties lie and told "Go back where you came from," even if, like our narrator, they are born here. Raised in a Milwaukee suburb by Pakistani parents, both physicians, he reflects upon his father's unadulterated pride in his Americanism and his mother's more muted adjustment to her adopted country. He credits a college professor with opening his eyes to the myth of American exceptionalism and his decision to immerse himself in a writing career. But while he was living in Harlem, 9/11 happened; brown-skinned men became suspect and Islam no longer a culture or a religion but an epithet. Still, the narrator's career takes off. He's wooed by a billionaire philanthropist, a Pakistani American who supports the right charities in a bid for acceptance, and mourns his mother's death and the end of a love affair. But the beating heart of this novel is his complex relationship with his father and with his homeland. VERDICT The personal is political in this beautiful, intense elegy for an America that often goes awry while still offering hope. [See Prepub Alert, 2/24/20.]--Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

A playwright and novelist, the son of Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, explores his conflicted place in U.S. society in a searing work of autofiction. The narrator of this novel, like its author, is named Ayad Akhtar. The real Akhtar achieved acclaim--and notoriety--with his 2012 play, Disgraced, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. The fictional Akhtar, too, has written a controversial drama in which an "American-born character with Muslim origins confesses that as the towers were falling [on 9/11], he felt something unexpected and unwelcome, a sense of pride." Over the course of eight chapters--some narrative, some nearly essaylike, all bookended by an "overture" and a "coda"--Akhtar explores family, politics, art, money, sex, religion, and prejudice in vivid, bracingly intelligent prose. Along the way, the reader encounters a range of memorable characters: Akhtar's father, an immigrant doctor who supports the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, a former patient; his mother, a melancholy woman who pines for Pakistan and the medical school classmate she wishes she had married instead of Akhtar's father; and Riaz Rind, a Muslim hedge fund manager who takes Akhtar under his wing and offers an education in the cold realities of capital. One comes to this book not for the pleasures of conventional narrative fiction (though Akhtar certainly can spin a tale); this is a novel of restless exploration that finds no pat answers about what it means to be a Muslim American today. A profound and provocative inquiry into an artist's complex American identity. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* Akhtar (American Dervish, 2012), whose many honors include a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, confronts issues of race, money, family, politics, and sexuality in a bold, memoiristic tale about a young Pakistani American before and after 9/11. This is not truly a "novel" in the usual sense, but rather a series of linked short stories reflecting on Akhtar's experiences as the child of Muslim immigrants, a writer, and an intellectual questioning his place in American society. A common thread is his relationship with his father, Sikander, initially a superfan of Donald Trump and all things American, and his growing disillusionment with his adopted country. Akhtar's mother, homesick for Pakistan and critical of American materialism, presents a quiet rebuke to his father's hyperpatriotism, as do various Pakistani relatives and family friends. As Akhtar comes of age, he interacts with an array of fascinating characters with different insights into the American character: an anti-capitalist literature professor, a Pakistani hedge-fund billionaire determined to become the Muslim Sheldon Adelson, and an African American Republican who wants to defund the racist government. Money, and the debasement of other values, is a defining element of Akhtar's relationship with his writing and his father, while the crude racism unleashed by 9/11 prods them both to question whether America can ever truly be their home. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Akhtar blends social commentary and family drama—particularly, the story of a father and son—to examine issues of identity and belonging in disoriented post 9–11, Trump-primed America through the immigrant experience. Along the way, the plot takes in the American heartlands, guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan, and the World Economic Forum.

This achingly intimate novel-cum-memoir from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Akhtar (Disgraced) searingly explores the existential questions consuming immigrants in the United States, a task he began with his debut novel, American Dervish. They're asked where their loyalties lie and told "Go back where you came from," even if, like our narrator, they are born here. Raised in a Milwaukee suburb by Pakistani parents, both physicians, he reflects upon his father's unadulterated pride in his Americanism and his mother's more muted adjustment to her adopted country. He credits a college professor with opening his eyes to the myth of American exceptionalism and his decision to immerse himself in a writing career. But while he was living in Harlem, 9/11 happened; brown-skinned men became suspect and Islam no longer a culture or a religion but an epithet. Still, the narrator's career takes off. He's wooed by a billionaire philanthropist, a Pakistani American who supports the right charities in a bid for acceptance, and mourns his mother's death and the end of a love affair. But the beating heart of this novel is his complex relationship with his father and with his homeland. VERDICT The personal is political in this beautiful, intense elegy for an America that often goes awry while still offering hope. [See Prepub Alert, 2/24/20.]—Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

Akhtar (American Dervish) reckons with the promises and deceptions of the American dream in this wrenching work of autofiction. The narrator, Ayad, was, like the author, born in Staten Island to Pakistani immigrant parents and raised in Wisconsin, and wrote a Pulitzer-winning play. In eight well-developed chapters structured as musical movements, starting with an overture and ending with a coda, Ayad traces his often complicated personal, philosophical, and political stance toward an America in which he sees himself as "other." In the process, Ayad responds to criticism of his past writings for rationalizing violence committed by Muslims; critiques capitalism while acknowledging how it benefits him; and confronts his own internalized conflation of race and sex. Most often, these issues are viewed through the lens of family, especially his parents. His mother is chronically homesick not only for her native Pakistan but also for her first love. By contrast, his father, a doctor slammed with a malpractice suit, finds his shortsighted optimism and eventual disillusionment with the American promise play out against the backdrop of the first two years of Trump's presidency in a pair of stories—one broadly humorous, one heartbreaking—that open and close the book. Akhtar's work is a provocative and urgent examination of the political and economic conditions that shape personal identity, especially for immigrants and communities of color. With an audacious channeling of Philip Roth's warts-and-all approach to the story of an American writer and his family, this tragicomedy is a revelation. Agent: Julie Barer, the Book Group. (Sept.)