Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
For some, the personal is political and the political is personal – that is the way people to choose to live their lives.
For others, whose lives are uncomplicated, un-hyphenated, their lives are just their lives.
In today’s multi-cultural Britain, British-Muslims don’t get a choice – they are forced to live a life where the personal and the political are entwined like the gnarly branches of two trees planted so close together they have grown as one.
In her latest captivating and timely novel Home Fire, the celebrated London based Pakistani-British author Kamila Shamsie examines the question – what does it mean to be a British-Muslim? How does it test your loyalty? How does it affect your liberty and your access to justice? What does it do to the bonds of family?
28-year-old Isma Pasha is finally embarking on her long deferred dream of pursuing a PhD in the U.S. Since the disappearance of her father and the early deaths of mother and grandmother, she has been the mother figure for her younger twin siblings Aneeka and Parvaiz who are now young adults.
The novel opens with her departure delayed at the airport by an interrogation from British authorities, “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.” Her loyalty to Britain, as a headscarf wearing Muslim is tested in a grilling that she expected and even practiced for but is still humiliated by.
Once established in her new home in Western Massachusetts she encounters a young man, Eamonn, whom she recognizes instantly. He is the son of an old neighbor, Karamat Lone, a Muslim immigrant who has made good in the British political establishment, slowly shedding the overt markings of his Muslim identity, speaking “of the need for British Muslims to lift themselves out of the Dark Ages if they wanted the rest of the nation to treat them with respect” as he married a white woman and moved through the ranks to his current position, the newly named Home Secretary, responsible for, amongst other things immigration and domestic security.
At first you are not quite sure where this encounter is going to go. We learn about Isma’s father, Adil Pasha, “He tried his hand at many things in his life—guitarist, salesman, gambler, con man, jihadi.” Then we learn that Eamonn’s father, then a newly minted Asian MP refused to help the family find out what happened to Adil who died, apparently on the way to Guantanamo, feeling they were “better off without him.”
The groundwork is now laid for a captivating and compelling novel about how the two families collide once more and unfolds through the eyes of each of the key characters.
Isma may have been a mother figure to her siblings, but she cannot pierce the deep connection between the twins Aneeka and Parvaiz. Anneka is beautiful, smart, hardheaded and desperate to help her missing brother, Parvaiz by any means necessary. Parvaiz has disappeared, swayed by the tales he has been told about his revered jihadi father, feeling isolated and aimless as his twin pursues a law degree, he ends up in Raqqa as part of the ISIS media team. Eamonn’s involvement with the Pasha siblings drags his father Karamat into a politically charged situation that tests the strengths of everything he has stood for as an integrated Muslim, testing his loyalties as a Briton, a politician and a father.
It’s a novel that is an incredibly necessary companion to the news headlines that we are inundated with in this age of security threats and Islamic terror. Shamsie has written a novel that rings true and provides the second and third dimensions to characters that we might see on the news but only as one dimensional figures in a headline.
How does a young born and bred British-Muslim end up becoming so disillusioned that he ends up persuaded that he should join ISIS? Shamsie very effectively draws out the tale of Parvaiz, his vulnerabilities and lack of purpose exploited, his susceptibility to a hagiographic remembrance of his father the accidental jihadi, and his complete gullibility in failing to understand the reality of how he is being manipulated. Parvaiz is a lost boy and someone convinced him that he could be found.
The other character who is especially compellingly rendered is that of Karamat Lone. Muslims have achieved all levels of success in today’s Britain. The current mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, BBC news host Mishal Husain, Popstar Zayn Malik are all examples of the diversity of prominent British Muslims. There are also several British Muslim MPs and they have also been and continue to be in the Cabinet.
Karamat Lone is one version of a successful British Muslim, one who has fully embraced assimilation which has allowed him to get ahead. He believes strongly in the political structures as the path to radical change. “…he continued to look at the Palace of Westminster and its watery reflection, the yellow stone pink-gold in the interlude of sunrise. The heart of tradition, everyone agreed, but few understood Britain as well as Karamat Lone and knew that within the deepest chamber of that heart of tradition was the engine of radical change. Here Britain whittled down the powers of the monarch, here Britain agreed to leave its empire, here Britain instituted universal suffrage, here Britain would see the grandson of the colonized take his place as prime minister.”
It’s a seductive argument on the surface. Lone has played by what he sees as the rules. He’s had to make a few compromises on the way but his ambition and success is the greatest proof that there is room in British society for someone of his background to reach the pinnacles of political power. Although the people from his background call him “Lone Wolf”, the man who left his world behind to be accepted into that other world of the political establishment.
The families collide again as Aneeka uses all means necessary to help her brother Parvaiz from the clutches of ISIS. The bonds between sisters and brother, father and son and star-crossed lovers are all tested in the hothouse of a politically charged situation.
The novel unfolds with a pace as gripping as any thriller, but written with a lyricism and focus that pulls the reader into the complex, multidimensional lives of all these characters and the inherent challenges of living as a hyphenated Brit. Each story is engaging and convincing and above all feels remarkably relevant at this very moment in history. The story moves to an epic finale that will leave your heart racing.
Kamila Shamsie has written not only a great novel, but a great novel for our times. One of the roles that artists and writers can play in culture is to provide us with a “truth” that we are almost too scared to look at in everyday life. Contemporary fiction at its best is a corrective to the warp speed with which we are bombarded with news in today’s information age. That news builds a scaffolding of the world around us. Shamsie has filled out that scaffolding with a compulsive story that helps us look beyond the headlines with compassion and insight.
BEFORE YOU READ
Length: 274 pages
Genre: Contemporary Fiction; Political Fiction; Family Life; Cultural Heritage
Themes: family, love, assimilation, politics,
Commitment: A tightly constructed book that grips from start to finish and will alter the way you look at today’s headlines.
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