They keep secrets from one another, and, most thrillingly, from themselves. They are funny, cantankerous, and affecting. They occupy a range of different social positions, but Lalami’s characters most often read like people, not avatars of representation. But Lalami largely avoids this impulse by imbuing her characters with a vitality that bridges the gaps between their identities and their interiority. a less skilled author might have produced an overly didactic text in the hope of exploring. has an abundance of talent and a dedication to the big questions of our time. Each character speaks in the first person in alternating chapters in the manner of witnesses giving testimony, a clever technique with great potential, yet with little to distinguish one voice from the other, their differences merge into a curious homogeneity. Despite moments when Lalami draws deft connections between secular and religious beliefs, the novel contains unfortunate missteps. Lalami’s novel, lacking focus, falters on both counts. We do not read fiction to wring our hands at yet another crisis precipitated by racism but to discover some larger truth. On another, this explanation is simplistic in its calculus. Change has come to America, and there are always brown people to blame. On one level, the Guerraouis, their modest accomplishments, and even more modest dreams, serve as a perfect locus for the troubles that ail a nation, particularly post-9/11.
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