Home Fire: Mesmerizing and Intense

Kamila Shamsie's new novel Home Fire (it's out today!) is one of the more mesmerizing, intense novels I've read in a long time. It's about a London family — daughter Isma, and twins Aneeka and Parvaiz — whose mother died awhile ago and whose father abandoned them and died after being captured fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was held at the infamous Bagram prison (where he was likely tortured), and was being transported to Guantanamo Bay when he died mysteriously.  Isma and her siblings don't know what happened to him, or even where his body is, and no one in London — least of all their ambitious-at-the-cost-of-integrity Member of Parliament, Karamat Lone — will help them.

The novel begins as Isma is traveling to America to go to graduate school — Parvaiz and Aneeka are 19 years old now (she is 28) and she feels like having basically raised the twins herself, she can finally set out on her own path. In Amherst, she randomly runs into Lone's son, Eamonn. They form a tenuous bond, and when Eamonn (a sort of drifter not dissimilar to Donnie Jr or Eric Trump) returns to London, he meets the rest of Isma's family including Isma's beautiful younger sister Aneeka. Meanwhile, the other twin Parvaiz has been recruited by a man who knew his father during the jihad. Parvaiz becomes enamored of the notion of the Islamic State and whisks himself away to Raqqa to join ISIS.

The novel spends one section on the specific story of each of these five characters (Isma, Eamonn, Parvaiz, Aneeka, Karamat), giving the novel as a whole more nuance than may otherwise have been possible. In fact, one of the themes of the novel is simply the importance of nuance. Too often, politicians like Karamat Lone try explicitly with rhetoric and policy to score cheap points by appealing to the lowest common denominator —by scaring their constituents with the notion of "other," not taking into account nuance. Basic humanity (along with any shred of their decency and integrity) is often the victim. And that's the case here, too. 

Home Fire is also a story about family loyalty, even in the most terrible circumstances. When a family member betrays his country, still, isn't his family entitled to learn about what happened to him? If a twin brother realizes the enormity of a mistake, shouldn't he, with an appropriate punishment, still be afforded basic human dignity? Shamsie deals with these touchy subjects gracefully and lucidly. 

Indeed, this is one of the more beautifully written novels I've read in a long time. But it reads at the pace almost of a thriller — an seemingly impossible trick I still have no idea Shamsie pulled off. I forgot to breathe from time to time, especially on the last page, which...just...wow.

This is definitely a favorite of the year. I loved it for its urgency and how current it feels. Highly recommended! 

(Side note: Apparently, and I didn't know this until finishing the novel, this story is a modern retelling of the Sophocles play, Antigone. But you don't need to know anything about that play to enjoy this — I didn't. I'm sure it helps if you do, but it's definitely not necessary.)