Author: Mohsin Hamid

Genre: Fiction

Format: Paperback; 231 pages

This book was a monthly selection in the TV and online PBS Book Club and was named one of the best books of 2017 by several newspapers and magazines. It has won other awards as well, so I wanted to read it before recommending it to my book group.

On the surface, it’s the story of two young people who fall in love in an unnamed country collapsing under the Civil War. Eventually, they leave together, becoming refugees and moving on to another country for safety and to start their lives over. The interesting thing that makes this story different is that the author, all too familiar with the fact that we are inundated almost daily with pictures and stories of refugees in camps, on rafts, and at borders, skips over the characters’ actual movements from place to place. Instead, he focuses on what thoughts, emotions and situations encourage or force people to leave their homeland. And then, how they manage in an entirely new place.

Curiously, Mohsin Hamid moves his characters from place to place by employing a literary device sometimes called magical realism but here is really more fantasy – he uses magical doors. There are secret doors the characters find through friends or tips. Once they enter, they exit in a different place (another country/continent), and after a few moments of recovery, they continue on their way in a new and hopefully a safe place to start a new life – no borders, no documentation and no idea where the next door might take them. Other minor characters mentioned but unrelated to the main story use the magical doors as well, so they seem almost common by the middle of the book. The idea of magical doors is not new, but they appear much more often in children’s literature. So, it’s particularly interesting to see them employed in a new way in an uber-contemporary novel of literary and political fiction.

Hamid’s basic story is a good one following Saeed and Nadia on their physical wandering and their relationship journey. After they meet in a college classroom, they become friends. It’s hard even for them to imagine romance in a city experiencing bombings and death almost daily. As their relationship evolves, it becomes clear that in times of chaos, what we need most is social connection. As external events escalate and curfews and cultural restrictions limit their time together, Saeed and Nadia realize they must leave…together.

As the story continues, they use the magical doors to move from place to place. First, they find themselves on the Greek island of Mykonos, where they live like refugees. Next, they’re in a commune-like setting in London, where civil society begins to fray as well. Eventually, they decide to take another door, ending up in the city of Marin in California. Throughout their travels, they contemplate and discuss refugee issues and how and why people move from place to place as societies and countries break down.

Hamid’s writing is sometimes beautifully descriptive and occasionally emotionally insightful. He uses Nadia and Saeed’s relationship to take us on a reflective journey of our own, allowing us to consider the real internal conflicts that arise when we’re faced with such overwhelming external crises.

This book isn’t for everyone. It’s a novel set in a culturally- and politically-charged environment. But kudos to Hamid for being able to do that so well – to put such a large global issue in a relatable, personal story. I’m definitely recommending it to my book group!