Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

�Grief was what you owed the dead for the necessary crime of living on without them.�

Literary retellings have had a day in the sun the past few years. From simply updating to a modern setting to different points of view to recast the story in new light or toying with a story until it is almost unrecognizable. Kamila Shamsie Home Fire, winner of the 2018 succeeds as a modern retelling by expanding both upon the perspectives of a Greek play but also expanding our understanding of our modern racial political climate. It isn’t a spoiler to know which Sophocles story Shamsie is updating (the opening epigraph directly calls it out in a quote translated by Seamus Heaney), which is a real credit to her storytelling as the dramatic ending still connects like a deeply emotional punch to the gut even though you know what will likely occur (just not how). This book is just gorgeously written and hits all the right notes of anxieties, love, betrayal, and the heroism of one girl standing in defiance to the State. Things are going well for the family until the young brother becomes radicalized and joins an extremist army and suddenly the powder keg of racial tensions is lit and ready to blow. Through modernizations of themes, such as the charmingly clever use of social media as a Greek Chorus, and a rotating cast of narrators each with a unique perspective, Shamsie takes a bold look at immigration, political fearmongering and identity in a post-9/11 world through a riveting story that will have you up all night turning pages.

What better choice for a racial discussion of a modern day Thebes than London, particularly as Home Fire was written and released during the tensions of failed Brexit deals and rising nationalism around the world. The story presumably takes place before (Brexit is notably absent from the list of hot topics Isma is asked when being questioned by Homeland security) but still in the tumultuous post-9/11 political climate of ISIS and rampant (and inherently racist) anxieties over Muslims. Instead of warring families as in Sophocles, Shamsie presents us with anti-immigration politicians and a family who’s father was a known jihadist that died in custody. This is similar to the recent film adaptation with Romeo and Juliet being Palestinian and Israeli as an effective way to let modern world traumas form the exposition of tension between the rivals in classic works. Through Shamsie's perfect poetic prose, this update signs with all the strength of a classic yet feels so comfortably embedded in the present.

�By the time the first light appeared in the sky she felt herself transformed by the desire to be known, completely.�

The story largely concerns issues of identity, particularly when your identity makes you a mark for scrutiny and hatred. The story opens with a tense airport questioning where oldest sister Isma knows any answer not deemed good enough will put an end to her university studies in America, an end to her much desired freedom, and create problems for her already on-the-radar family. For Isma, this aspect of identity is all consuming. Freedom is also a desire of her younger sister, Aneeka, who resists patriarchal society. For their brother, however, he is more driven by a desire to fulfill his father's legacy and be thought of as a man. �For girls, becoming women was inevitability,� Shamsie writes, �for boys, becoming men was ambition.� Isma figures herself to be the level-headed role model and warns how easily their world can be shattered simply for being Muslim.

�think about those of us with passports that look like toilet paper to the rest of the world who spend our whole lives being so careful we don’t give anyone a reason to reject our visa applications? Don’t stand next to this guy, don’t follow that guy on Twitter, don’t download that Noam Chomsky book.�

Muslim identity is also at heart of the other family in this novel, the family of wealthy MP and home secretary Karamat Lone. Shamsie uses Karamat’s Muslim heritage to attack the ways politicians are less so people with beliefs of principle than beliefs of convenience. As a younger, rising star in Parliment, Lone used his Muslim heritage to win his base, whom he promptly discarded upon achieving real power. Once hoped to be a champion for immigrant rights, he is now hard-line anti-immigration and said to be �Mr. British Values. Mr. Strong on Security. Mr. Striding Away from Muslim-ness.� While despicable, Karamat is easily the most nuanced and successful character and the chapter from his POV is a wild ride through self-deception and a cold-hearted logic where the ends justify the means, no matter who gets hurt. �Contempt, disdain, scorn: these emotions were stops along a closed loop that originated and terminated in a sense of superiority.�

As drama builds for Isma and Aneeka with their brother run away to join the jihadists, Karamat is kicking up racist dog whistles to champion himself in the next election and ride the wave of nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiments for personal gain. �I hate the Muslims who make people hate Muslims,� he says, in the sinister politician way where he can never be hung on his words and knows he can backtrack if pressed. When the inevitable happens, suddenly there is a dispute over if a body can cross borders for burial and both families are enveloped in scandal.

At it’s core, this is a love story wrapped in politics. Familial love and romantic love are the beating heart pumping this story along. For, unbeknownst to Karamat, his son Eamonn has been having a hidden relationship with Aneeka and now their personal lives are the talk of the media. With love, however, there is always the risk of betrayal. Through the rotating perspectives, we witness the relationship from multiple angles that keep you guessing if it is authentic or for political gain for Aneeka, while also watching Isma feel betrayed by her sister for sleeping with Eamonn when she had her eye on him in America, and by her brother for his actions. There is also the betrayal of your adoptive country who is quick to turn on you and label you a terrorist. Each new perspective expands the drama and also illuminates previously unlit corners of earlier events as Shamsie brilliantly fleshes out the story in a way that keeps it fresh in tone, voice and actions.

What translates best in this adaptation is the power of defiance in the face of the State. Aneeka not only single-handedly—and very publicly—stands up to and actively disobeying the State but she makes its own players complicit and forces their hand. Karamat seeks to be a man of principle, but is currently under scrutiny for his waffling allegiance to his heritage, and Aneeka’s actions must make him publicly stick by his word and thus create scandal or give in to her singular wishes and tarnish his already fragile reputation (also a healthy dose of scandal on this option still). It is a thrilling and moving act that shows how one person can make or break on a mass scale.

One of the most effective parts of the story is the twitter posts, news reports (both national news and tabloids) that are interspersed with the narrators. It not only grounds the story in the present but also serves as a sort of Greek Chorus to comment on the moralities of the tale. It also functions as a commentary on how, with social media, we often act as readers of national and international events, even participants (an unverified tweet sets off a chain reaction of events late in the novel). It serves as a good reminder that even the personal can be political and how we tend to all rally around a side whenever a story begins trending.

Even if the reader is familiar with the source material, the ending is still highly successful. Shamsie has crafted a novel that is so infectious that I read it over a weekend and spent any time away from the novel thinking it over and yearning to get back. It is highly cinematic, which gives it a fast pace, though slowing it down and letting it breathe would have been welcomed rather than going from event to event. The sections of Paraviz becoming radicalized are especially intense and Shamsie shows that emotional manipulation is often the tool for any army to get someone to die for their cause. Love and betrayal go hand-in-hand here, but, despite how things turn out, Shamsie reminds us that love was still the victor. Timely, insightful, poetic and irresistibly engaging, Home Fire is a book I find myself telling people to read all the time even two years after having read it.

4.5/5

�Everything else you can live around, but not death. Death you have to live through.�