Guest Post: Author of Painted Hands - Jennifer Zobair

When I talk about how I came to write a book about two successful, professional Muslim women in Boston, I often say that it started with a drug test in Michigan. I’d just left my law firm job for an in-house position at a robotics corporation and, as many companies do, they required a drug test as part of the hiring process. I reported to the appropriate hospital for the test, with my big, blond hair and tailored black suit, and proceeded to answer the perfunctory questions—name, address, date of birth— from the twenty-something male registrar. When he got to religion, I said Islam.

 Without missing a beat, he replied, “I wasn’t expecting that.”

 Despite research showing that Muslim women in America are highly educated and high-income earners, the stereotype of the oppressed and foreign woman persists. This “otherizing” is what allowed that young man to be so surprised to learn I was a Muslim. And it’s what informs too many narratives about Muslim women in this country.

 My novel is about the kinds of Muslim women I know—smart, opinionated, warm, confident. Because I married into a Pakistani American family, many of the Muslim women I know happen to be South Asian like my two main characters, Amra and Zainab. In many ways, the book is about their experience as second generation Indian and Pakistani Americans and the ways they navigate their bicultural identities. For example, they don high-end western clothes as they scale the corporate ladder, but can still rock a gharara or a sari at South Asian weddings and parties. Zainab, who is a brash, beautiful campaign strategist, even wears a red lehenga to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, causing Amra to ask if her attire isn’t “too ethnic.” Part of this might be because Amra is a lawyer at a prestigious law firm, and law firm culture is notoriously conservative. But politics is, too, and Zainab’s sartorial choice probably has more to do with her confidence: In this as in all matters, Zainab is radically and unflinchingly committed to being herself—a very American and very South Asian feminist.

 The novel explores Indian and Pakistani culture, to be sure—there are descriptions of food and clothes and wedding traditions like how brides typically wear red and have their hands “painted” with henna before the ceremony. But for immigrants of any generation or background who happen to be Muslim, there are points of departure from other immigrant stories in a post-9/11 world, and I’ve tried to capture that in this novel. What does it mean to be a Muslim in America, or a woman—even a feminist, as my characters and the author certainly are—in Islam? Who is a “real American” and who gets to decide? And how do you maintain your dignity when so many people stand ready to vilify you on the one hand, or pity you on the other, based on your religious affiliation?

 Of course, Painted Hands also explores issues many non-Muslim women can relate to as well. My characters balance high-powered careers and the desire for a family. They are attracted to compelling and complicated men. They confront the glass ceiling, the pressures of the western beauty myth, and the fissures even close friendships face when people change. At the heart of the story, then, is that whatever our roots, whatever generation of “immigrant” we happen to be, our struggles and triumphs are strikingly similar. There are differences, of course, and I hope Painted Hands illuminates a bit about what it’s like to be Muslim woman in America. But I hope it also shows that universal truth the brilliant Maya Angelou spoke of in her poem “Human Family”:

 I note the obvious differences 

between each sort and type 

but we are more alike, my friends 

than we are unalike

Thank you to Jennifer Zobair for this excellent post about the characters in her novel, their immigrant stories and the universality of that experience.  Her first novel is Painted Hands (my review).

Review: Painted Hands by Jennifer Zobair

In Painted Hands by Jennifer Zobair, we meet Zainab Mir, Amra Abbas and Rukan, three American Muslim women who grew up together as best friends. Now adults, the women are successful in their careers and have managed to dodge their family's attempts to marry them off and move them into the traditional wife role they would like them to play. Amra is an in-demand attorney at a top Boston firm and firmly on the partner track. Her hours are long and all-consuming. Zainab is a political consultant and communications director for a feminist candidate for office in Boston - she espouses controversial positions by mainstream standards and certainly by those of her conservative Muslim family. Rukan is considering marriage to a non-Muslim which has shocked her family. The novel provides a glimpse into the dilemmas that face many young women - balancing career aspirations with desires to have a husband or kids and the selection of a spouse that a family does not support - but offers that glimpse through the lens of the Muslim-American experience.

My Thoughts
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it is well-written and the characters are engaging. As I reflected on what captivated me about this book, I first thought it was the view into a world that is not written about much in contemporary literature. The experience of young Muslim-American women grappling with modern dilemmas like how to balance work and home life or the choice of a spouse which dismays a family, is not one widely seen in literature today. I was fascinated by the Muslim traditions and the cultural expectations placed on women. In addition, the author skillfully created multidimensional characters in these three women. It would be easy for them to all fit cultural stereotypes and be very similar to each other simply because of their common background.  Instead, they are distinct from each other and have their own story.

On reflection, however, I realize that the women's Muslim American background is a layer in this story but not the entire story. At the core, they are just modern, educated women facing the challenges we all face. What I was drawn to was their similarities to me and not to their differences. Amra, Zainab and Rukan's experiences are similar to my own and those of my friends  - their differences make the story perhaps more compelling but what I responded to most was how well their stories resonate. This is a smart, entertaining read.

You can read other reviews of this book from those on the TLC Book Tour .

Audiobook Review: American Dervish by Ayad Aktar

American Dervish (read by author, 9 hours, 28 minutes) is a coming of age novel layered with themes of religious faith and awakening, marital strife, racism and immigration. Despite the many themes, the author expertly weaves them together and wraps them in a story with a compelling young protagonist and the result is an immensely readable (in this case, listenable) book which I won't soon forget.

Hayat Shah is the son of Pakistani parents and lives with them in Wisconsin. His parents marriage is troubled and Hayat is often his mother's confidant as she shares her frustration with his father's dismissal of her - she is educated and gave up much to marry her husband which further deepens her resentment of the marriage which does not satisfy her. Hayat's father is a successful doctor who eschews the Muslim community of which everyone expects him to be a part.  He sees all religion as the root of many of the world's problems and his scientific mind questions much of what the faithful believe without question.  Hayat's mother wants to adhere more to her faith and culture than her husband - at one point, she forbids Hayat from attending a local carnival because it is sponsored by the Church. As a result of his parents' conflicted attitudes towards religion, Hayat is bereft of faith - he has not real familiarity with the Muslim religion.

When Hayat's mother's friend, Mina, arrives to live with them from Pakistan, she breathes life into the Shah home and an awakening begins. Mina is very religious and sets about teaching Hayat about the Muslim faith.  Hayat, enraptured by this introduction to his faith and Mina's beauty, soaks up these teachings eagerly. Mina doesn't get caught up in some of the more archane rules of the religion and teaches Hayat the fundamentals and emphasizes that "doing right" is what is most important.

Mina, meanwhile, has her own problems to deal with - she has left Pakistan with her young son after her husband divorced her through an emissary.  A man came to her bedside after she had given birth to her son and told her that her husband repeated Talaq three times thereby divorcing her. Mina is a modern, educated woman living in a family and country with outdated ideals and a view of women as secondary to men.  This conflict manifests itself in an eating disorder for Mina and an apparent inability for her to find happiness.  These patterns repeat themselves even when she comes to the United States.

The conflicting views of faith, culture and a woman's role in her family and society all come to a head in a variety of scenes throughout the book.  The scenes are powerful and nuanced  - there is no obvious right and wrong even though the issues are so divisive.  Hayat is the ideal protagonist for these conflicts because he looks at this issues with less nuance than the adults around him and thereby offers a very clear view of the issues.

As often happens with a book that blew me away, I am not sure that I am giving it justice - American Dervish  is beautifully written and deals with difficult issues without hitting you over the head with a point of view.  As an audiobook, it was a pleasure to listen to - read by the author, the characters' voices were distinct from each other and the accents were executed perfectly. I found myself standing inside the door after my walk home just listening and unable to stop.  This will definitely be in my Best of list for 2013!