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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
Challenging, complex and vivid in its family narratives and exploration of identity amidst western capitalism, racial citizenship and religion.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Yes, the Pakistani homeland he'd hated for the entirety of his American life—or so he'd led us all to believe-was now his homeland again. And it didn't seem to bother him one bit. He'd been in Pakistan just about a year when I finally confessed I was almost finished with a book in which I wrote it out-what had happened to him and her and to me in our American jour-neys. I was surprised how lackadaisically he took the news. There was no entreaty to deal with him justly, no admonition to strike a fair balance about my American homeland. Instead, he had this to add about his own experience and suggested I might not want to leave it out: That when he thought of the place now, America, he found it hard to believe he'd spent so much of his life there. As much as he'd always wanted to think of himself as American, the truth was he'd only ever aspired to the condition. Looking back, he said, he realized he'd been playing a role so much of that time, a role he'd taken for real. There was no harm in it; he'd just gotten tired of playing the part. "I had a good life there, so many good years. I'm grateful to America. It gave me you! But I'm glad to be back in Pakistan, beta. I'm glad to be home.
- Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
.
This book can be a hit or miss, depending on who’s reading it. For me, I really liked it—at least until I found out that parts of it were made up, which felt strange since it’s supposed to be a memoir. I enjoyed reading about Ayad Akhtar’s father more than Ayad himself. Even though I didn’t agree with everything his father did, I understood why he wanted so badly to feel like he belonged in America. His deep desire to fit in, even with all the struggles and compromises, was both sad and relatable. It really shows what it’s like to be an immigrant in America. I think the book’s title connects both to his father’s story and to Ayad’s own feelings about the USA, the country where he was born. I read this book when I was feeling pretty open-minded, so while it’s easy to see Ayad as someone who just wanted to fit into rich and powerful circles, I saw it as part of his growth. His story is a lot like what many of us go through: starting off with big dreams (he really admired America because of his father), then getting disappointed (he faced racism and unfair treatment because he’s not white), and finally seeing things in a more balanced way (realizing the USA isn’t perfect but can improve). I can see why some Muslims might not like this book. Ayad is open about how he doesn’t practice Islam much anymore—he drinks alcohol and has casual relationships—which might make his talks about Islam feel off to some people. But he often uses his own experiences to explore what it’s like to be both Muslim and American, looking at stereotypes and misunderstandings. Even if you don’t agree with him, I think it’s important to respect that his experience is his own. Overall, I found this book refreshing and thought-provoking. It’s controversial and might make you mad at times, but it does a great job of showing how complicated it is to be an immigrant in America, especially as a person of color.
- Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
.
This book can be a hit or miss, depending on who’s reading it. For me, I really liked it—at least until I found out that parts of it were made up, which felt strange since it’s supposed to be a memoir. I enjoyed reading about Ayad Akhtar’s father more than Ayad himself. Even though I didn’t agree with everything his father did, I understood why he wanted so badly to feel like he belonged in America. His deep desire to fit in, even with all the struggles and compromises, was both sad and relatable. It really shows what it’s like to be an immigrant in America. I think the book’s title connects both to his father’s story and to Ayad’s own feelings about the USA, the country where he was born. I read this book when I was feeling pretty open-minded, so while it’s easy to see Ayad as someone who just wanted to fit into rich and powerful circles, I saw it as part of his growth. His story is a lot like what many of us go through: starting off with big dreams (he really admired America because of his father), then getting disappointed (he faced racism and unfair treatment because he’s not white), and finally seeing things in a more balanced way (realizing the USA isn’t perfect but can improve). I can see why some Muslims might not like this book. Ayad is open about how he doesn’t practice Islam much anymore—he drinks alcohol and has casual relationships—which might make his talks about Islam feel off to some people. But he often uses his own experiences to explore what it’s like to be both Muslim and American, looking at stereotypes and misunderstandings. Even if you don’t agree with him, I think it’s important to respect that his experience is his own. Overall, I found this book refreshing and thought-provoking. It’s controversial and might make you mad at times, but it does a great job of showing how complicated it is to be an immigrant in America, especially as a person of color.
Pure genius. Inventive, passionate, and heartbreaking. This novel that blends memoir and fiction in a way I’ve never read before is about the immigrant experience and how Trump and Cult 45 have put a hard stop on the American dream for so many. It also presents a fascinating take on how Trump and Cult 45 could possibly have happened — a combination of American greed, anti-intellectualism, and truly a desire to stick it to big city liberals. And finally it’s about what it really means to be an American and how fraught being a Muslim American (or even just an American with a “Muslim name”) can be. Intensely loved this book - easily a favorite of the year.
The author really reveals so much of his own story and experiences in a meaningful way. The narrative also contains important history, sociology, and psychology of America. I found myself looking up additional information about events because I felt like they were important. Obama put this on his 2020 must reads list. I agree. I did have to look up several words as I read this. I mostly appreciated this extension of ordinary vocabulary and a few times thought a commonplace word would have conveyed the meaning.
Brutally honest take on a Pakistani immigrant story covering two generations depicting how the American Dream can also be a nightmare.
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Who knows what to call this book? Non-fiction novel? Fiction memoir? Autofiction? The writer Akhtar has created a character Akhtar. Both are empathetic. Both navigate through the minefields of America, its mad capitalism, its terror of the immigrant, its war with itself.
I could listen to Ayad Akhtar carry on (on any subject) all day, but will the real Ayad Akhtar step forward?
There was an odd, fascinating moment when Ayad Akhtar was being interviewed for this book recently on Fresh Air. Homeland Elegies, a novel described as "auto-fictional", features a main character with the same name as the author. Protagonist and author share many biographical details: place of origin, Muslim cultural background, same life and career arc, same family, same friends, and so on. Indeed, signal details are so much the same in life as in the book--take, most famously, that Akhtar's Pakistani-born father once consulted Donald Trump on a rare heart condition--that it begs the question: is it a novel, or is it a memoir? While at first Dave Davies (the other FA interviewer) deftly prefaced each question by indicating whether it's about the author's life OR about the book's "hero", eventually Davies drops the qualifying prefaces. Listening in I wondered if Davies was doing so deliberately or had inadvertently fatigued of repeatedly going back and forth between two parallel sets of questions. It was Akhtar himself who commented, as if he were listener rather than interviewed, at the peculiarity of having to tease out which Akhtar the question was about.
In the novel, in so much as it can be called that, there is a beginning and an end, but little in between to call a plot that drives a narrative forward. Yet, in that most unwieldy word used by one of the blurb reviewers, Salman Rushdie (who's novels, in a further meta twist, are read by the protagonist as life-changing and essential), the book is "unputdownable." Anchored by what it is to be an American-born Muslim of Muslim Pakistani-born parents in present-day America, Ayad Akhtar's narrative ranges on a truly unexpected range of subjects: from the father's support of Trump to Muslim life in the United States after 9/11 to the weakening of antitrust laws in the United States and the replacement of God with money to the healthcare system that caters to shareholders rather than patients to the reception of the author's work (his drama, heretofore unknown to me, has won a Pulitzer) by both Muslim and non-Muslim Americans. Regardless of the subject, regardless of whether he's tapping the novelistic riches of his lifestory or writing commentary that would get published in a NY Times editorial worthy of being forwarded to your friends, Ayad Akhtar is unflaggingly brilliant as well as entertaining.
I fail to see the point of calling it a novel. It seems that it stands formidably, sui generis, as a Joan Didionish collection of essays and commentaries. Akhtar, in the FA interview, insisted that, beyond what he might himself argue about it, the proof is in the reading. He ought to have the last word.
There was an odd, fascinating moment when Ayad Akhtar was being interviewed for this book recently on Fresh Air. Homeland Elegies, a novel described as "auto-fictional", features a main character with the same name as the author. Protagonist and author share many biographical details: place of origin, Muslim cultural background, same life and career arc, same family, same friends, and so on. Indeed, signal details are so much the same in life as in the book--take, most famously, that Akhtar's Pakistani-born father once consulted Donald Trump on a rare heart condition--that it begs the question: is it a novel, or is it a memoir? While at first Dave Davies (the other FA interviewer) deftly prefaced each question by indicating whether it's about the author's life OR about the book's "hero", eventually Davies drops the qualifying prefaces. Listening in I wondered if Davies was doing so deliberately or had inadvertently fatigued of repeatedly going back and forth between two parallel sets of questions. It was Akhtar himself who commented, as if he were listener rather than interviewed, at the peculiarity of having to tease out which Akhtar the question was about.
In the novel, in so much as it can be called that, there is a beginning and an end, but little in between to call a plot that drives a narrative forward. Yet, in that most unwieldy word used by one of the blurb reviewers, Salman Rushdie (who's novels, in a further meta twist, are read by the protagonist as life-changing and essential), the book is "unputdownable." Anchored by what it is to be an American-born Muslim of Muslim Pakistani-born parents in present-day America, Ayad Akhtar's narrative ranges on a truly unexpected range of subjects: from the father's support of Trump to Muslim life in the United States after 9/11 to the weakening of antitrust laws in the United States and the replacement of God with money to the healthcare system that caters to shareholders rather than patients to the reception of the author's work (his drama, heretofore unknown to me, has won a Pulitzer) by both Muslim and non-Muslim Americans. Regardless of the subject, regardless of whether he's tapping the novelistic riches of his lifestory or writing commentary that would get published in a NY Times editorial worthy of being forwarded to your friends, Ayad Akhtar is unflaggingly brilliant as well as entertaining.
I fail to see the point of calling it a novel. It seems that it stands formidably, sui generis, as a Joan Didionish collection of essays and commentaries. Akhtar, in the FA interview, insisted that, beyond what he might himself argue about it, the proof is in the reading. He ought to have the last word.
At a certain point the urge to fact check every detail gives away to a certain sense of resignation in his process. It's a very similar feeling to endlessly scrolling through the news and realizing that you've been seeing just as much Onion and Daily Mail headlines as you have the Times and WaPo.
I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars. This is one of the best books I have ever read. It made me think. It made me feel. It made me feel seen. This is an intellectual’s dream of a novel. Ayad Akhtar does an absolutely amazing job highlighting the nuances of American life, culture, and identity. It doesn’t hold back. It doesn’t placate. This is what truth telling looks like.