Readers and Writers: Novels set in Pakistan and St. Paul

Novels based in Pakistan and St. Paul are today’s summer reading picks.

“Under the Tamarind Tree’: by Nigar Alam (Putnam, $27)

“Now Rozeena knew, like everyone else, that over the next many months at least fifteen million people — Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs — were displaced. People fled their homes and crossed the border in both directions. Muslims ran to Pakistan for safety, and Hindus and Sikhs ran to India for safety. This movement and exchange of population, one of the largest mass migrations in human history, hadn’t been part of the plan, but it had been necessary for survival … Up to a million people died.” — from “Under the Tamarind Tree”

Minnesotan Nigar Alam’s thought-provoking debut novel is about families, friendship, secrets, a long love never consummated, women who want to be independent, and generational trauma carried by those who were children caught in violence when India was partitioned in 1947.

This is a novel that needs to be read carefully because it moves between 1964, where four friends live on the same block, and the present, when retired doctor Rozeena hears a voice on the phone she’d never thought to hear again. It is her childhood friend Haaris, asking if Rozeena would look after his teenage granddaughter, Zara, who lives in Minnesota and is struggling with her own demons.

In the 1964 portions of the story, Rozeena, Haaris, Aalya and Zohair have fun together as children in their connecting gardens. It doesn’t matter that Haaris is wealthier than the rest. But when there is a death at a ball, their young lives are changed forever, introducing secrets, lies and blackmail as Rozeena is frantic to save Aalya’s good name. (Alam keeps suspense going as she hints at something bad about to happen in chapters leading up to the incident.)

In the contemporary chapters, Rozeena is living quietly until Zara enters her life. Supposedly doing an internship as a gardener, the young woman is more interested in learning about Rozeena’s life. Rozeena, now in her 70s, sees a lot of herself in the young woman and urges her to always be herself. It’s a lesson Rozeena learned as she tried to replace her brother, lost the night of Partition.

When she is a young woman, Rozeena asks a wealthy mother if she will spread the word about Rozeena’s little clinic. Haaris warns her never to be beholden to the wealthy class to which he belongs. She can’t understand, he tells her, what the powerful rich can do to someone.

Throughout the book, it’s clear Rozeena and Haaris are meant for one another but Haaris moves to Minnesota to fulfill a promise to someone. Rozeena’s son, Mansur, emails Haaris for information about his father, whose name Rozeena has never revealed.

Rozeena wants to be independent but her Aunt Sweetie, a social-climbing developer, keeps reminding her how proper Pakistani women behave, even as Rozeena tries to support her mother and keep their old house and car repaired.

“Under the Tamarind Tree” is richly layered, with well-written characters. Rozeena learns much, about herself and the world, between 1947 and the present. Haaris is heartbreaking in his carefully-hidden love for Rozeena. Aunt Sweetie, large and loud, is determined to keep the family’s name spotless.

Alam, who teaches at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, was born in Karachi and spent her childhood in Turkey, Nigeria, Italy, Kenya, Indonesia and the United States.

She writes in her author’s note that her parents’ families crossed the border into Pakistan at the time of Partition. “But historical facts and numbers, however horrific the scale,” she writes, “don’t convey the true human impact, the life-altering consequences, and the trauma that ripples through generations … It’s the personal stories that speak to us.” She says those in her family never spoke of the past, like many characters in the novel, who had to start over in life when they abandoned their homes. As Alam researched and wrote, she “finally came to learn about some of their experiences, and many of those emotional truths are explored and reflected in the book.”

Alam will introduce “Under the Tamarind Tree” at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 14, at Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls., in conversation with bestselling Minnesota author Kathleen West, whose latest novel is “Home Or Away.” Registration required. Go to: magersandquinn.com/event.

“A Decent World”: by Ellen Hawley (Swift Press, $22.91)

“The Russian Revolution, she thought, must’ve had some moment like this, when a spark landed on a pile of straw and no one noticed until the whole place was in flames. The Paris Commune would’ve had some moment. The Spanish Republic, the medieval peasants’ revolts, the wave of union organizing that swept the US during the Depression. The spark never caught where you thought it would, or when, but over and over again people reached their limit and before anyone understood what was happening, the fires were burning.” — from “A Decent World”

Will collective action make a better world? How do different generations fight injustice?

These are the questions in former Minnesotan Ellen Hawley’s new novel, “A Decent World.”

It begins with the death of Josie, a life-long communist, and the grief of her granddaughter, Summer, who’s cared for the old woman for a year. Much of this story is about Summer coming to terms with her sorrow while trying to keep peace between her aunt and uncle and her mother, a singer with a band who turned Summer over to her grandmother when she was a baby.

There are references to a character living just off Summit Avenue and comments about the Black community along the freeway.

Summer is living in the Household, a communal house where her lover, Shar, also lives. There’s lots of discussion in the house about revolution but, as Summer later realizes, “…for all Zac and Shar’s talk about revolution — and they talked about it a hundred times more than Josie and Sol ever had — they weren’t expecting one any sooner than I was. Overthrow capitalism? … We’d grown up with the end of the world. But the end of capitalism? Fat chance. The capitalists we would always have with us.”

Into the story comes David, the rich brother Josie refused to acknowledge. Summer doesn’t trust him, but she needs his money to help fund the literacy program for children started by Josie. So she tolerates him.

As the story continues, Summer becomes more disillusioned about communal living and what she considers mostly empty talk about how to obtain social justice. She ends her affair with Char and tries to buy Josie’s house from her relatives.

This is an interesting, cerebral book that contrasts the beliefs of Josie and her old Communist comrades and Summer’s generation looking for a different path.

Hawley was an integral part of the Twin Cities literary community before she moved to Cornwall in England 15 years ago. She arrived in Minnesota in the 1960s from her native New York and soon found the Vietnam War protest movement centered at the University of Minnesota. Besides editing the Loft Literary Center’s publication A View from the Loft, she worked a variety of mundane jobs she disliked until she discovered driving a cab. Her experiences led to her first book, “Trip Sheets,” interconnected short sketches published in 1998 by Minneapolis-based Milkweed Editions.

“Open Line,” Hawley’s second book, is political satire about a radio talk show host who suggests to a boring caller that the Vietnam War was a hoax. It was published in 2008 by Coffee House, another Minneapolis-based literary press.

Last summer Hawley’s novel “Other People Manage” was her first to be published in the U.K. In July the book was announced as longlisted for the British LGBTQ+ Polari Prize. Winners will be announced Nov. 24 at the British Library.