A Conversation About AMERICAN DERVISH by Ayad Akhtar

2012 at 5am     Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky

Published January 9, 2012 by Little, Brown

American Dervish is about Hayat Shah, a young Muslim boy growing up in the American midwest in the 1980s, trying to make sense of his faith and his identity. Hayat’s parents have raised him in Muslim culture but have not given him any religious training.  When his mother’s dear friend Mina–who is deeply spiritual and devoted to her own interpretation of Islam and with whom Hayat is quite taken–moves in with the family and takes Hayat under her wing, he explores his beliefs for the first time. Tied up in Hayat’s discovery of what it means to be Muslim is his first exposure to anti-Semitism within his community, and it contributes to turmoil that results in Hayat doing something that hurts Mina irreparably.

While I have some mixed feelings about American Dervish, I was quite struck by many parts of it, and I’m really pleased to have my friend Kalen Landow, who first recommended the book to me in mid-2011, here discussing it with me today. [warning: some light spoilers ahead]

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RJS: I spent the better part of 2011 looking forward to American Dervish after you read a galley and said that it goes to a place you’ve never seen a book go. What did you mean by that?

KL: I wanted to re-read American Dervish to make sure my reaction to what had shocked me before was the same. I originally read this about nine months ago–given the volume you and I read, that was a lifetime ago.

Yes, my reaction was the same. I’ve never, that I can recall, read a novel where characters are so blatantly anti-Semitic. Being Jewish, you read the lines, cringing, not quite believing you’re reading what you’re reading. And you remind yourself these are only characters in a book, while knowing at the same time there are plenty of people out there–of all faiths–who feel exactly this same way. When I was 14 or 15, one of my best friends at school told me I was going to hell for not believing Jesus was the son of God and reading this made me recall that and other similar memories and experiences. (Some not nearly so distant….)

I read a lot of novels that deal with graphic, raw themes but this one hit closer to home than I ever anticipated it would.

Can you recall a book with such anti-Semitic characters?

RJS: I can’t. And I find it remarkable–and brave–that Akhtar pulls back the curtain on anti-Semitism within the Muslim community as candidly as he does. I was too young in the early 80s to know about or remember the events and political tension that appear in the book, and Akhtar’s characters made the history real for me in a way that learning about it in school never did. I think there’s an interesting role reversal happening here, too–the anti-Semitism Akhtar reveals within the Muslim community is parallel in many ways to the anti-Muslim rhetoric we’ve been hearing from ultra-conservative Christian communities since 9/11. I don’t think that’s an accident. Akhtar forces readers into a difficult conversation, and I wondered at times if he saw the anti-Semitism as a way to make Muslims the bad guys and get even closed-minded readers on his side before he came around to the real point. What do you think?

KL: Yes, I think you may be right and I also agree with your assessment about anti-Muslim rhetoric. It seems everyone in the book, with the exception of perhaps Nathan, had a prejudice against one of the three primary religions. We all think we’re right and the others are wrong. On that note, I found Naveed’s character to be the most complex and the most fraught–even more than dear Hayat. He was the most accepting of Nathan, yet he was riddled with his own contradictions. He was the least pious character in the story.

Whose story intrigued you the most?

RJS: I  agree about Naveed. I found some of the characters to be more like caricatures or archetypes than fully realized, and Naveed was one of the exceptions. I was also very drawn to Mina. That she worked so hard to escape the restrictions of orthodox Muslim life–fleeing her husband, moving to America, taking up with a Jewish man–only to find herself trapped and nearly killed by it was heartbreaking. While I’m thinking of that: many of the female characters in American Dervish, Hayat’s mother chief among them, are quick to criticize Muslim men for their behavior in relationships and their treatment of women. I got the impression that Akhtar had great sympathy for his female character but wanted to call out or indict the male characters. And that made me wonder what he was really trying to say about Muslim culture. Did you read this as a criticism? An indictment? Something else?

Read more

Quotable: TOWNIE by Andre Dubus III

2012 at 5am     Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky

I’ve been reading Townie for an upcoming interview with the author, and I’ve taken so many notes and underlined so many passages that I’ve run out of space on the pages and had to tuck extra paper into my book. Townie is a memoir about Dubus’s hardscrabble childhood in New England mill towns and how he found his way out of violence and into writing as the means of expressing his pain. It’s an astounding read, and I’m looking forward to sharing more with you soon. For now, there’s this:

Somehow…studying all I’d studied, I’d felt like more than just me. My reading had joined my mind to the thinkers before me, to the millions of people whose lives they indirectly wrote about, these scholars who sat in a tower so high they could see everyone and I could too.

Don’t you love that? “My reading had joined my mind to the thinkers before me.” That’s why we do it, right?

The Sunday Salon 1.22.12

2012 at 8am     Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky

Good morning from Richmond, where we are not having a snowy weekend and are deeply jealous of all of you who are. We’re observing a snowday in spirit, though, by staying in our pajamas, drinking a lot of coffee, and doing as little as possible. (Okay, that’s what we do every Sunday, but still.) It’s been a few weeks since I did a Salon post, so let’s get caught up!

Reading Life

The closest I’ve gotten to winter weather this year has been in my reading of The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (out February 10 from Reagan Arthur). Set in Alaska in the 1920s, it’s about a couple who desperately want a child but cannot have one. Their attempt to build a homestead in the wilderness is a constant struggle that pulls them further and further apart. In a rare moment of buoyancy, they build a little girl out of snow only to discover the next morning that she is gone. Then they see a young girl running through the forest, wearing the mittens they left on their snow child, and despite the niggling sense that they might be coming down with a shared case of cabin fever, they hope that she is real. Or at least really magical. It’s a thoroughly enchanting story and a very strong debut novel, and I certainly hope it’s not the last we’ll hear from Eowyn Ivey. I’ll be writing more about it later. For now, you can check out the gorgeous book trailer.

It was quiet around the blog this week because I couldn’t bear to tear myself away from the new John Irving novel long enough to write much of anything. I always think it’s a good problem when I’m enjoying reading too much to blog. I’ve also been dipping into Edna O’Brien’s short story collection Saints and Sinners. I’m liking it well enough, but it took me longer than usual to get into it because the opening piece is more than 40 pages long–easily the longest in the bunch–and collections that start with long pieces are one of my readerly peeves. I know collections are organized as they are for artistic reasons, but I find it’s harder to get into the flow of reading short fiction when the first story feels more like reading a novel. But that’s my problem, not the book’s. And because I’m a good little book polygamist now, I’m also reading Townie by Andre Dubus III. I’m not far enough into it to have an opinion yet, but I have high hopes. Finally, I’m working on a collaborative post about American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar, which is remarkable in several ways and disappointing in several others.

Writing/Blogging Life

I’m still having a blast with my gig at Book Riot, which is a delicious mixture of writing and social media (which is a sort of writing, too). It’s exciting to be part of a young site trying new things and keeping the conversation about books fun and irreverent, and the smart, creative posts our contributors write have pushed me to crack a different part of my brain open and start thinking and writing about about books in a new way.  This week, I had a post about how to merge bookshelves with your partner, started a collaborative column with Liberty Hardy called The Well-Readheads, and took a deep dive into Pinterest. I’m still figuring out how to balance Book Lady with Book Riot, and I expect it to be more of an ongoing process than a one-time solution. Again, a great problem to have.

If the number of internet kerfuffles this week is any indication, the bookosphere has officially woken up from its holiday slumber. I won’t pretend to be in the know about the YA blogging world, but I saw enough this week to know that there’s been yet another argument about the definition of “review” and the standards of professional behavior. I’m on record in many places with the opinion that a review is an objective examination of a work–it is about the book, the writing, the craft–whereas a discussion of a book that is primarily about the reader is something not-review–a reaction or response, perhaps. My thoughts on use of the term “review” have evolved quite a bit in the four years I’ve been blogging, and while I don’t think we should ever expect to get to standardized terminology, I do think the conversation about what bloggers do and how it is similar to and different from traditional reviewers is important, as is the conversation about the value bloggers add to the literary community. I also think that Kit Steinkellner’s suggestion that the only way to prevent ridiculous drama that is counterproductive to bloggers’ struggle for credibility is to disengage from it is right on–her post about it is possibly the smartest thing I’ve ever read about the author-blogger relationship, and I’m not just recommending that you read it because it appeared on Book Riot.

And then there’s the asshat who wrote a complaint-riddled post about the press kit that accompanied a galley he received, accusing the publicist of “intellectual bullying.” I can’t decide what’s more absurd–that a blogger is upset about a publicist doing her job and sending information about a book she is paid to promote–and that he received for free and was in no way required to pay attention to–or that Publishing Perspectives actually ran the post. Must have been a slow news day.

This concludes the latest bloggy brain dump. What’s up in your reading and writing life these days?

Mark Your Calendars for IN ONE PERSON

2012 at 5am     Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky

Cue up the Sister Act 2 Oh, Happy Day video, it’s time to celebrate! Or, it will be on May 8, when new books from John Irving (the original #pantyworthy author) AND Toni Morrison hit the shelves. I’ll be taking the day off to observe what is essentially a literary holiday (employers: consider yourselves warned), but I couldn’t wait to start talking about the Irving, In One Person.

When the galley arrived last week, I entertained the thought of waiting until closer to the release date to read it for approximately 3.8 seconds. But who am I kidding? I love John Irving, and after the disappointing embarrassment of Until I Find You and the almost-there-but-not-quite Last Night In Twisted River, I needed to be sure we weren’t looking at a “three strikes, you’re out” situation. I don’t like to break up with authors, but I’d rather quit while I’m ahead and can preserve the good memories than force myself to continue reading them after the magic is gone. Good news, ladies and gents: the magic is not gone.

In One Person is about Billy Abbott, a bisexual man who grew up on the campus of an all-boys boarding school in the late 50s and early 60s and discovered at a young age his tendency to have crushes on “the wrong people.” The narrative follows him into an adulthood marked by loneliness (straight women don’t trust him; gay men suspect him of being a fraud) and loss (in true Irving style, Billy’s father is absent and his mother dies tragically) and through the horrors of the AIDS crisis of the early 1980s. Many of the Irving hallmarks are present–wrestling, chief among them–and they fit naturally into the story (as opposed to the shoehorn-them-all-into-one-scene-ness of Twisted River). Notably, the only bears are of the hirsute gay male variety. However, adults making questionable decisions abound! And no one loses a limb!

Just as The Cider House Rules is Irving’s abortion book, In One Person is his sexual diversity book. Characters do not hesitate to express their distaste for rigidly conventional people–admittedly, the proportion of characters who are sexually unconventional is far from realistic, but that’s what Irving does, right, quirks writ large? And he has a point–everyone has *some* taboo desire, however repressed–and the sooner we acknowledge that and accept each other, the better off we’ll be.  Irving avoids most of the pitfalls that make politically motivated fiction so often problematic, though In One Person has a distinct “preaching to the choir” feel at times. Will he change minds with this book? Maybe. Is the book a wash if he doesn’t? Not at all. With In One Person, Irving presents an affecting story with timeless themes about a very specific time in American culture. It’s what he does best, and I, for one, am glad he’s back.

Talking ZONE ONE with Colson Whitehead

2012 at 5am     Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky

If you’d told me a year ago that not only would I be reading a zombie novel, I would be loving it, co-hosting a book club podcast about it, AND interviewing the author, I don’t think I’d have believed you. But such is the beauty of collaborative projects that breed comfort-zone-expanding recommendations, and I couldn’t be happier. Zone One was awesome; Josh, Jenn, and I had a fun conversation about it; and Colson Whitehead was a terrific guest.

There’s an embedded player for your listening pleasure below. Enjoy, subscribe, and join us for the next Bookrageous Book Club: Swamplandia!

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