Note:
There are no spoilers in this review because, well, it’s just not a Donne thing, to borrow a cheesy line from Anwar, the ‘hero’ of Syed M. Masood’s The Bad Muslim Discount.
Spanning continents and decades, encompassing themes of loss, love, hate, religion, geopolitics, war and…collateral damage, adjectives such as ‘epic’ or ‘sweeping saga’ might appropriately describe this brilliant novel. They would miss its essence. Though all of the above loom large throughout, The Bad Muslim Discount works because of the details, the intimacy of – a game of checkers with life lessons, an ice cream parlor that creates a sense of belonging, father-son, son-mother conversations inside a car, a dingy apartment that witnesses the good, bad, ugly and beautiful.
Anwar’s family leaves Pakistan because, as his father puts it, he can’t breathe there any more. Anwar’s mother fears they will be treated as second-class citizens in America. His father, perhaps a Khizir Khan in the making, has faith in the US Constitution and the family settles in northern California. It’s a familiar, post-1970s scene – for immigrants settled in large metros, that is. Little [Fill in the blanks] – close-knit communities where most families know each other somehow (mosque/temple/ethnic grocery store). Anwar’s mother adjusts surprisingly well; his father not so much, initially. Anwar has no issues, “I had been training to become an American all my life.” Anwar’s brother, Aamir, a pious, straight-arrow type, completes the family photo.
Safwa, born during the first Iraq war, has seen another America. Real bombs – not the video game variety, death, violence, pain and loss. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. She also knows sit-com America from videotapes of Full House, her mother’s obsession. Eventually, going to America becomes Safwa’s dream, to get an education, a job, a place where, “…no one would tell me what to do and how to live.”
Safwa, Anwar, Zuha (Anwar’s high school girlfriend) – their paths cross, somewhat dramatically, in San Francisco, post-9/11, against the backdrop of the 2016 US presidential election.
It’s a coming of age story. That immigrant experience thing, yes – leaving home, coming home, fitting in, as well as self-discovery, first and other loves, losing and finding faith. The novel is filled with romance (at times Indian TV serial-style), comedy, drama, crime, action – sometimes all at once. Reading 3-4 chapters at a time felt like watching a web series (Asim Abassi – are you listening?).
I was hooked immediately to the first-person narrative. To do so in multiple voices, switching seamlessly from Anwar to Safwa each chapter, was, in my reading experience, unique. What makes this novel and author stand out is the wry, dry, self-deprecating humor – no matter what the context and never taking away from serious, thought-provoking, tragic themes. And, Masood including references to poets, ghazals and Bollywood – that was just icing on the cake.
So much in Bad Muslim Discount felt familiar. Maybe because, as Anwar says toward the end of the story, humans are more similar than not. I will be going back to read the book again but in this first pass, a few excerpts resonated.
On home:
It is strange, wandering in a city you are intimately familiar with, because even when you don’t know exactly where you are, you never feel lost. You always know, more or less, how to get back home.
On faith:
In the Bollywood movies…I remembered heroes railing at Hindu gods in their temples. Demanding and receiving justice…It was only when I reached the mosque that I remembered Muslims don’t get to do that…there was nothing to scream at there. There were no icons or idols and God…So I stood before Him. I was silent. I did not complain. I know He saw me. He knew that I was there, in that place, at that moment. I know He knew the beating of my heart. I know He saw how it was carved.
On facades. Describing a California train station, Masood writes it
..was a squat, long building that looked like it was made from reddish-brown bricks. It probably wasn’t. In America, they build things out of wood and then put false faces on them, to make them seem like they are stronger, more durable, than they really are.
An uncle visiting from India would agree, at every level. Unlike other American houses, I recall he was impressed by my ‘solidly’ built house. I tapped a long nail lightly into the stucco; it slid through the tar paper into the hollow space in between wood studs.
On a personal note, it seems fitting I finished this book on the 4th of July, Independence Day, when Americans celebrate a nation built, as the President says, on an idea and, as Anwar explains to his father,
….a country built on slavery and reliant on the continued economic exploitation of other people.
I woke today to a message that said “Proud to be an American!’ Poignant, since it was from an Asian-American who has known fear this past year, perhaps for the first time in his natural-born-in-America life. After 9/11, many Americans with brown skin felt fear. It wasn’t…isn’t enough to carry a copy of one’s US passport or declare “I am an American.” For most of the years since, I have avoided fiction, movies, docu-dramas, documentaries, analyses and news of terrorist attacks, renditions – endless wars. The instant, visceral, physical reaction said, not yet. I dove into this book based on a brief recommendation and without really thinking. By the time I realized where it was going, I was hooked and laughing out loud. I am grateful to the author for giving me another wonderful reason to celebrate.
Am glad you enjoyed this novel so much! I confess though, I do not follow the allusions in the review, and that makes me wonder if I won’t be able to follow the novel too, that the details and the intimacy of them, which are the making of the novel, may fall flat for me, and I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it because of being an outsider. Am wondering, does the author write well enough so that even to outsiders, those details are made accessible?
The first person narrative and switching voices in alternate chapters (or even having up to half a dozen first person narrators) is increasingly popular these days – and like all writing, if done well, extremely satisfying, but very often, done less than well, and the novel ends up relying on this ‘gimmick’ rather than being able to utilise it as a narrative strength. Sounds like it was good in this novel! But I am not sure I want a book to read like a web series…the textual form is significantly different from the visual, and often what works in one, fails to work as well in another, which is why writing a film script from a novel is actually a hugely creative process I think, because it is creating a whole new thing actually!
Really identified with your uncle coming along and admiring your solidly built house – have had similar experiences with my own folk! (Chuckle!!) My dad loved how ‘solid’ the doors are in British houses – they are certainly heavier than the typical doors at home. But I think that’s because they are fire doors, usually, and seal tight when they close, whereas ours at home are flimsier and don’t seal. Different building codes, probably, but I am out of my depth here!
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for your comment!
Working backwards, on doors, I’ll take the solid wood doors of India over the lightweight ones US builders provide. There is a fire door in between garage and house – per code, it has shut automatically, usually hitting me going and coming. Almost 20 years and I still fear the door-police will come if I change the hinges.
Re: the web series – if I get into a book, I start visualizing scenes, events, but not the characters, even if described in great detail. Have been this way since childhood. Examples–anything by Thomas Hardy which I read long before seeing any of the movies. “Anil’s Ghost’ by Ondaatje – I don’t think was a movie, but I ‘saw’ it in my mind. I don’t ‘need’ books to be turned into movies (or since it’s the thing now, a series). This book, its pace, the journeys taken, literal and figurative…a 2-hour movie wouldn’t do the characters, conversations or events justice–a 10-episode finite series might.
The 1st-person narrative wasn’t a gimmick in this book, I think, but I know what you mean. It works here-maybe some day I’ll go back to see if there were any flaws, but it seemed important to tell the story from both Anwar and Safwa’s perspective before their lives intersected.
Interesting that you used the term ‘outsider.’ Most of the characters in the book are outsiders, first and foremost, as immigrants, so I don’t think the themes of fitting in, finding a haven in a new place, generational differences – all of these should not be hard to appreciate. That said, I wonder – the American experience with regard to the Iraq wars, terrorism and, of course, the past 4 years with he-whose-name-shall-not-be-typed as president, while not at all hard follow, is/was different. We bring our own experiences to a book, as a friend told me this morning.
I went back to why I picked up this book…the title ‘Bad Muslim Discount’ 3 words not often written together; a comment that it (the author) was funny; the blurb said it was ‘irreverent’ – it is not easy to be funny or irreverent about religion these days. I wasn’t expecting anything different about the ‘immigrant experience,’ nor that, as the blurb says, Anwar and Safwa’s worlds ‘collide’ – I figured the usual generational conflict – tradition vs. ‘American-raised’ values. But, it goes beyond – just a bit.
Lastly, I don’t read reviews of books that intrigue me enough that I start reading immediately – I’m too easily influenced – and many times, too much of the story is revealed in reviews. I didn’t mean to be mysterious in my review. I envy reviewers who can describe enough of the story while…not giving it away!