Bright Lines

June 15, 2015
Three Brooklyn girls grapple with their Bangladeshi roots and modern sexual challenges in Islam’s debut novel. Ella, orphaned by her parents’ murder, lives with her aunt Hashi and uncle Anwar, serving the role of an honorary daughter; further complicating the family dynamics is her suppressed romantic love for their daughter, her cousin Charu. The family also welcomes Maya, the daughter of an Islamic cleric, who has run away from her father’s oppressive household. When the family travels to Bangladesh in an effort to restore their bond, they find answers but also tragedy. Too often, the narrative is distracted by Anwar’s many spiritual and sensual conflicts, including his brother’s unresolved murder. But Islam depicts lush Bangladesh and a gritty Brooklyn very well, and she’s at her strongest when following the free-spirited young women. The characters’ halfhearted feelings toward their Muslim identities provide an original and intriguing backdrop for their misadventures.

June 1, 2015
This debut novel opens in Brooklyn, where Anwar and Hashi Saleem have raised their beautiful, rebellious daughter, Charu, and their quiet, boyish niece, Ella, as sisters after Ella's parents were murdered in Bangladesh. Every detail in this rich novel is evocative of transformation-the family garden, the products Anwar makes by hand for his botanical apothecary, and the home he rebuilt from disrepair, the beauty salon Hashi runs, where she drags Ella into an ice-cold bath before chopping off her hair and dressing her in her father's clothes. Anwar tells Ella, "Each seed tells this story: Everything that happens is already written." It's 2003, the year of the famous New York City blackout, only two years post-9/11. The Saleems had immigrated to New York 20 years earlier, after having lived through war in Bangladesh, and the roiling atmosphere of Brooklyn in the hot summer of 2003 makes it clear that the past demands to be reckoned with. Ella returns home from college to find Maya, a friend of Charu's, sleeping in her bed. She takes to the garden hammock, where she suffers hallucinations while working with her uncle to create a perfect circle of beauty. Throughout the novel, taboo and transgressive impulses (cousin loves cousin, husband loves neighbor, niece loves uncle, girl loves disappeared friend) are referred to as "misdirected love." As though to knock the misguided lovers back on track, violence and loss at home and abroad force them to reconsider where they direct their love. Reckoning with the past leads to a more fully realized present. The novel is a sensitive and subtle exploration of the experience of gender nonconformity across cultures. Though Ella emerges as the most changed character, this is more than her story-it's a transcontinental, transgenerational tale of a family and its secrets.

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Starred review from July 1, 2015

A writer whose work has appeared in Feminist Wire and Open City magazine, as well as a multimedia artist and founder of Hi Wildflower Botanica, Islam makes a wonderful debut with this novel about a Bangladeshi American family living in Brooklyn. Ella was orphaned as a child by her parents' murder following the Bangladesh Liberation War and doesn't feel at home when she comes to live with her Uncle Anwar, Aunt Hashi, and cousin Charu. To complicate matters, Charu's friend, Maya, is sleeping in Charu's bed when she arrives, and as their friendship grows, Ella is forced to confront her sexual identity. Meanwhile, Anwar harbors his own secret, one that threatens his 30-year marriage. When tragedy strikes and the Saleems are blamed, they travel to Bangladesh to reckon with the past. VERDICT The beauty of this novel is that it perfectly merges fascinating narrative, honest characters, and the rich history and culture of Bangladesh with the juxtaposition of Bangladesh's past and future and of that country with America, adding to the reading pleasure. For lovers of both literary and historical fiction; the anthology Beirut 39: New Writing from the Arab World is excellent complementary reading.--Ashanti White, Yelm, WA

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2015
Islam's debut novel follows three young women, already shadowed by immense conflicts, coming of age in Brooklyn two years after 9/11. A refugee from Bangladesh after her parents' violent deaths, Ella was raised by her Uncle Anwar Saleem, who runs a botanical apothecary, and her Aunt Hashi, who runs a beauty salon, and who accentuated her niece's boyish looks by cutting off her hair. Now Ella has just finished her sophomore year at Cornell, and she is struggling with her feelings for her lovely cousin, Charu, Anwar and Hashi's boy-crazy teenage daughter, while suffering hallucinations. An aspiring designer, Charu has decided to lose her virginity to Malik, who works at her father's store. Meanwhile Charu's friend Maya has fled her repressive home and found sanctuary with the Saleems. As the summer winds on, forbidden and problematic love blooms, and Ella, Charu, and Maya are each forced to confront the secret longings, fears, and hopes they've been suppressing. Islam presents an unusual, involving, and evocative rites-of-passage tale enriched by multicultural, intergenerational, and gender-role conflicts and questions.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)