Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed

 

An Indian mother and her two daughters have gathered in San Francisco for the birth of the elder daughter's first child.  Seema left her family in disgrace when she came out to her father during her university days.  He has since refused to have her home or even speak to her.  Seema has led a turbulent life, moving from city to city and from lover to lover.  She has been here in San Francisco the longest.  Working on political campaigns, she met Bill and to her surprise, they fell in love and married.  They are now divorced but conceived this baby at the end of their marriage.  

Nafessa is the mother and she is torn apart by the gulf between her husband and his daughter Seema, and between her two daughters, Seema and Tahera.  Nafessa recently was diagnosed with a disease that will take her life and she insists on going to San Francisco to help her daughter.  She also convinces the estranged sister, Tahera, to come and help also.

Tahera hasn't seen Seema since she left when Tahera was a teenager  She is now a doctor living in Texas with her husband, son and daughter.  Tahera and her family are strict observant Muslims and she wears the full complement of coverings and raises her children strictly.  They attend a Muslim school.  She has thought they had a happy life but recently there has been anti-Muslim occurrences in the city and she now questions if she and her husband have made the right choices.  

Nawaaz Admed is an Indian author who also left India to live openly as gay.  He started his career as a computer scientist but has returned to the world of literature that meant so much to him growing up.  This novel was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award.  Readers will learn much about the Muslim culture, it's food, rituals and the varying ways of living as a Muslim from very strict to very loose adherence.  It is also a novel of separation and how we heal such separations, a process that this country is in need of.  The family is separated by gender identity, by past resentments and by religious adherence but find ways to come together.  This book is recommended for readers interested in Indian and Muslim culture and those who read literary fiction.