Home Fire (Shamsie)

Home Fire 
Kamila Shamsie, 2017
Penguin Publishing
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780735217683


Summary
Longlisted - 2017 Man Booker Prize

The suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences

Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother’s death, she’s accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long deferred.

But she can’t stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London, or their brother, Parvaiz, who’s disappeared in pursuit of his own dream, to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma’s worst fears are confirmed.

Then Eamonn enters the sisters’ lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to—or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz’s salvation? Suddenly, two families’ fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love? (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 13, 1973
• Where—Karachi, Pakistan
• Education—B.A., Hamilton College; M.F.A., University of Massachusetts
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in London, England


Kamila Naheed Shamsie is a Pakistani-British novelist, who is the author of seven books. Born in Karachi, Shamsie comes by writing naturally: she is the daughter of journalist and editor Muneeza Shamsie, the niece of Indian novelist Attia Hosain, and the granddaughter of author Begum Jahanara Habibullah, who wrote of her life under the British Rah.

Though raised in Karachi, Shamsie left her home country, heading to the U.S. for college. She earned a BA from Hamilton College, as well as an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, both degrees in creative writing. In 2007, Shamsie moved to London and now has dual citizenship with the UK and Pakistan. At first traveling back and forth between the two countries, she now lives primarily in London.

Writing and awards
Shamsie began her career while still in college, writing her first novel In The City by the Sea. The novel was published in 1998 when she was only 25, but even at that age her talent attracted attention. The debut was shortlisted for the UK's prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and in 1999, it received the Prime Minister's Award for Literature in Pakistan.

She followed her first novel with Salt and Saffron in 2000, a book which earned her still more recognition: she was named one of Orange's "21 Writers of the 21st century." Next came Kartography, shortlisted again for the John Llewellyn Rhys award. That novel, along with Shamsie's fourth, Broken Verses, won the Patras Bokhari Award from the Academy of Letters in Pakistan.

Novel six, Burnt Shadows won Shamsie the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the book was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. A God in Every Stone was shortlisted for two prizes — the Walter Scott Prize and Baileys Women's Prize. Home Fire, Shamsie's seventh novel, was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize.

Shamsie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2013 was included in Granta's list of 20 best young British writers. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved on 8/18/2017 .)

Book Reviews
Kamila Shamsie's new novel…a bold retelling of Sophocles' Antigone… begins with an airport interrogation…a scene that sets the tone for this ingenious and love-struck novel. Isma is eventually allowed to take off. Home Fire takes flight as well. This novel may seem to wobble in the minutes after its landing gear retracts. There are lurching shifts of tone as it moves between matters of the heart and of state. Do not panic. Order something from the drinks cart. Shamsie drives this gleaming machine home in a manner that, if I weren't handling airplane metaphors, I would call smashing.
Dwight Garner - New York Times

This is a haunting novel, full of dazzling moments and not a few surprising turns.… Home Fire blazes with the kind of annihilating devastation that transcends grief.
Katharine Weber - Washington Post


All of Shamsie’s novels are deeply moving and morally complex, leading to the kind of rich reading experience most of us hope for in every novel we pick up. Her newest has all of that and more.
San Francisco Chronicle


Shamsie’s prose is, as always, elegant and evocative. Home Fire pulls off a fine balancing act: it is a powerful exploration of the clash between society, family and faith in the modern world, while tipping its hat to the same dilemma in the ancient one.
Guardian (UK)


The most impressive part of Home Fire, though, is Shamsie's writing, which is beautiful without being florid, and urgent without being rushed.… Shamsie is at her best when she lets herself go; she's an immensely talented writer, and a deeply musical one as well. Home Fire might not be quite perfect, but it's still a gorgeous novel, and one that comes at just the right time.
Michael Schaub - NPR


Shamsie’s timely fiction probes the roots of radicalism and the pull of the family.
Oprah Magazine


Home Fire is about love, loyalty, and sacrifice — and it makes the headlines we read every day hit home in a way that will inspire any reader to fight for what's right.
Bustle

Shamise’s incredibly moving story addresses the conflict between what we feel to be right versus what the law tells us is right, and what we will sacrifice in the name of family.
Real Simple


[M]emorable…epic tale of two Muslim families whose lives are entangled by politics and conflict.… [S]eparated into five parts…each reveals a portion of the story from a different character’s perspective.… [S]lient and heartbreaking, culminating in a shocking ending.
Publishers Weekly


[A]ccomplished…emotionally compelling …lucid storytelling. [The author] digs into complex issues with confidence.… As this deftly constructed page-turner moves swiftly toward its inevitable conclusion, it forces questions about what sacrifice you would make for family, for love.
BookPage


(Starred review.) Gut-wrenching and undeniably relevant to today’s world.… In accessible, unwavering prose and without any heavy-handedness, Shamsie addresses an impressive mix of contemporary issues, from Muslim profiling to cultural assimilation and identity to the nuances of international relations. This shattering work leaves a lasting emotional impression.
Booklist

[H]aunting…explosive novel with big questions about the nature of justice, defiance, and love. [I]ts characters… don't quite come alive… [and] the book remains emotionally disconnected, unsettling—moving, even—but poetically removed.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Home Fire … then take off on your own:

1. The opening section begins with Isma Pasha nearly missing her flight. Talk about her treatment at the hands of "immigration" officials at Heathrow. How did the indignities she suffered at their hands make you feel?

2. Isma's voice is one of compromise and accommodation: how else might you describe her?

3. Talk about Parvaiz Pasha and his quest to honor his father, Adil. What kind of man, husband, and father was Adil, and what did his faith mean to him? When Parvaiz's eyes are opened to the caliphate and its atrocities, did you wonder how he could have been so misled?

4. What do you think of Isma and Eaamon Lone's relationship? Do they have a genuine connection? Why doesn't Isma let on that she knows who Eaamon's father is?

5. What are your thoughts about Aneeka? How does she define herself in relation to her faith, and how does her attitude toward Islam differ from her sister's?

6. Talk about the vast differences between the two families, the Pashas and the Lones.

7. Consider Aneeka's relationship with Eamonn — she is clearly manipulating him, but she have a higher purpose? As she puts it: "Why shouldn’t I admit it? What would you stop at to help the people you love most?"

8. After Isma informs the police that Parvaiz has left for Syria, Aneeka is appalled: "You betrayed us, both of us. Don't...expect me to ever agree to see your face again. We have no sister." Is Aneeka's anger justified? Would it have been bettier directed at her brother who betrayed them both? What do you think?

9. Where should Isma's loyalty lie: with her brother or her country? By informing the police of Parvaiz's intentions, did she make the right or wrong decision? Can there be a correct moral decision when faced with the impossible choice between family loyalty and duty to society?

10. What is mean by the title, "Home Fire." How does it differ from the World War I meaning, "keep the home fires burning."

11. Talk about the relevance of Home Fire to today's world. What do you see in the novel that illuminates and/or resonates with current concerns.

12. Kamila Shamsie has drawn inspiration from the ancient playwright Sophocles and his drama Antigone. Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, was prohibited by law from burying her brother. You may wish to do a little research in order to better understand Shamsie's conception — her modern take on the Sophoclean tragedy.

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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