And if you have no place within you to call home……….
Kamila Shamsie’s thoughtful, immersive, disturbing book starts with an emotional punch, and does not let up
Isma is a British Muslim. She is on her way to take up an academic post in Massachusetts. And is stuck in interrogation at the airport :
Isma was going to miss her flight. The ticket wouldn’t be refunded because the airline took no responsibility for passengers who arrived at the airport three hours ahead of the departure time and were escorted to an interrogation room……She’d made sure not to pack anything that would invite comment or questions – no Quran, no family pictures, no books on her areas of academic interest…The interrogation continued for nearly two hours. He wanted to know her thoughts on Shias, homosexuals, the Queen, democracy, the Great British Bake Off, the invasion of Iraq, Israel, suicide bombers, dating websites
Shamsie immediately drops the reader into the experience of being regarded with suspicion, because of ethnicity
Home Fire is on one level just a very human story about a family, and a love story. Older sister Isma takes up her academic position in the States. She meets a vibrant, interesting fellow academic whose path kind of crossed her family’s, back in her teens. Ayman has become Eamonn:
so that people would know the father had integrated…his Irish-American wife was seen as another indicator of this integrationist posing rather than an explanation for the son’s name.
Isma and Ayman/Eamonn become friends, though Isma finds herself harbouring deeper feelings for the man whose affection for her is merely brotherly.
Isma is the plainer, studious eldest sister, who has become surrogate mother to her younger siblings, twins Aneeka, fiery, creative, beautiful, and her less sure, less confident brother Parvaiz.
Circumstances will bring Aneeka and Ayman together, initially without Isma’s knowledge, and a story of the love, jealousy and heartache will play out.
But this is far more than a kind of fairy story of the prettier youngest sister. There are deceptions, deliberate obfuscations and a distinct sense of always living with the potential of menace and misunderstanding because of the real history and the perceived history of race and religion
Parvaiz has vanished, and is not spoken about. He is a family secret, and what has happened to him is on one level obvious.
Isma’s family has a past regarded as suspect. Eamonn/Ayman’s family has integrated so well that his father became an MP. But at the end of the day, integrated or not, ‘identity’ will be recognised by appearance.
This is a hugely uncomfortable (in the very best way) read. It made me feel long and hard about identity. Many of us trace our complex history back with pride, discovering perhaps a history of different European immigrations across the centuries. But where geography is written in skin colour, assumptions, not our own, will be made about who we are.
I shall certainly read more of Shamsie. On this showing, she enters into the psyches of a range of characters, and, whatever the positions, we do get presented with the human complexity within
One of the strands within this book is a working of the story of Antigone, whose dead brother is denied burial, on the grounds of being seen as a traitor. To be honest, as someone drawn to Greek myth and history, it was one of the reasons I requested this title, but the connections are there if you wish to acknowledge them, but do not in any way reduce the power of the book’s effect upon the reader if you don’t. All it really shows is that these ancient myths and histories have their uneasy power to move us because we seem to repeat our history, with different names, but, effectively unchanging motifs, across the millenia
I received this as an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley
kaggsysbookishramblings said:
Sounds very powerful Lady F – this one’s appeared on my radar a few times lately and it sounds very relevant just now.
Lady Fancifull said:
It really is Karen. Unfortunately, with the way the world is going increasingly so.
heavenali said:
I loved this book, so powerful it’s definitely a tale for the times in which we are living.
Lady Fancifull said:
Isn’t it wonderful? I read it a while ago, but for various reasons have an utter backlog of reviewing overwhelming me. I did see your very appreciative review of this some weeks ago, and remembered that you were also very much championing it
JacquiWine said:
A characteristically thoughtful review, Lady F. Retellings or riffs on the classics are not my usual thing, but this does sound both accomplished and compelling. Like Karen, I’ve seen quite a few positive reports over the past month or two – it certainly seems to have captured the imagination of several readers.
Lady Fancifull said:
Thank you Jacqui. The analogy is not laboured in any way, more an inherent idea I think which underlay she family story she was writing, and the larger landscape that their story exists in. I’m not even sure whether I would automatically have thought ‘this is Antigone’ without the publisher description. It is a very potent book and offers no pat solutions at all.
MarinaSofia said:
Very keen to read this one, but it keeps slipping on the back burner…
Lady Fancifull said:
There are so many amazing books to be read – we really need to evolve several pairs of eyes and hands, not to mention several brains, to enable true reading multitasking of several books simultaneously. I keep getting a horrible image of transmogrification into a spider!
FictionFan said:
Sounds timely – was it written before the ‘Muslim’ ban and all the Trumpery or as a reaction to it? It’s lucky I have no desire to go to America – I’d do fine with all the questions about religion and politics, but the Great British Bake-Off section would leave me stumped…
Lady Fancifull said:
I suspect, from what one author told me about the length of time something takes to GET published that it may well have been written before the ban. I do think writers are like weather vanes though, sniffing the way the wind blows
Jilanne Hoffmann said:
There’s a reason why myth also means “truth.” They resonate and repeat themselves, wearing different clothes for each generation. Nice review!
Jilanne Hoffmann said:
And that graphic of Antigone makes me squirm.
Lady Fancifull said:
You know, I just could not find an illustration I was prepared to use – everything I looked at just seemed so loaded in one way or another, so I was pleased to find this one, which is open to various interpretations I guess
Jilanne Hoffmann said:
I do think it’s an interesting image. So visceral. I think it was a good choice. 😀
Lady Fancifull said:
Thank you Jilanne. Yes, they resonate
madamebibilophile said:
Great review Lady F. I’ve been thinking a lot about notions of home recently, so you’ve pushed this up the TBR!
Lady Fancifull said:
Oh good, she deserves to be read.