Review by Eric Page
After his wife suffered a vicious race and faith-based hate crime, which is recorded and goes viral, the tensions across this family start to fray. Imran calls out to his sister, living in New York, to return home to Bow, East London and support them in this complex family story of navigating grief, loss and the search for authentic happiness. As eldest child Imran promises his dying mother to continue a ‘traditional’ patriarchal approach to the family, to be ‘the man’.
Middle daughter Sumaya marries and moved to American, fleeing the suffocating traditions of her Bengali British community. Majid, the youngest son, a mannered millennium, glories in his lack of responsibility, exploring a fluid LGBTQ+ approach to his life, Queer, loving, accepting and seemingly at ease with the many facets of his identity and integrated into a strong group of empowered, supporting queer people of colour.
When Sumaya returns to London, rediscovering her secret lover and triggering a whole series of events, and empowering her to make stark changes to the way she’s been living, breaking out of the rut of repeated family ties, allowing her feelings to flow, and the energy of that release giving her the confidence to push through and speak her truth, first to her younger gender queer brother. He takes it with a shrug, but introduces her to his friends and their intersectional delights who offer her hope for new life.
She also addresses her older brother, her blunt frank approach to him releasing years of tensions, resentments and a recognition that they can’t go on living in the decreasing circles of their parents cultural expectations of them, but they (and he) needs to let go, put things into perspective and move on. This leads to Imran challenging the direct and systemic racism he’s worked under for years and reaching out to his wife across a gulf of his own making and exploring what his own previously rigid masculinity needs to thrive, stripped of its traditional beliefs.
The narrative thumps up a pace as the book nears it ends with all three siblings having an opportunity to reflect and address the ways the promises made, assumed expectations bound them and their own desires to live authentic lives have compounded to make them feel stuck.
It’s a very happy ever after ending, with the pressure of the truth washing away any of the South Asian experience of migrant life nitty gritty that these characters may have had to deal with had they not had the options of moving country and place to establish themselves. But author Ahmed gives his characters hard but kind endings – out, honest and hearts full of hope.
It ends with love, found, hoped for and refreshed, self-respect freeing them from seeking others’ approval, the siblings finding their family bonds, both blood and chosen are made anew, embracing the authentic reality of their queer, bi and conscious coupling choices. Recognising that their complex intersectional mix of rich ethnic and faith-based heritage, as contemporary urban Londoners, and their own families lived experience of resilience offers them a strong foundation to blossom and grow. It speaks to how our intimate connections with birth family transcend culture, heritage and geography.
Ahmed’s prose deals with huge issues in a touching, personal way, giving the characters time to see how they need to change and what they need to lose to make those changes. We hear their voices with clarity, experiencing the fears and feelings, their love and losses, and breathe their wishes and hopes along with them, giving the reader a tender insight into the tribulations and relationships of this contemporary British Bengali Muslim and Islamic heritage family, whilst reflecting our own hopes back, to be seen, to be heard, to be loved.
Lovely, recommended.
Out now, £6.99. Order a copy HERE.
