The Sweetness of Tears

April 25, 2011
A high school biology course in Mendel's laws sends Jo March on a cross-continent journey that challenges her very identity. Haji's sprawling second novel (after The Writing on My Forehead) is a family saga that expands over several decades to explore the history of Islam, the reach of Christianity, the horrors of the war in Iraq, and several other hot-button issues. Predictably, the author alternates viewpoints to deepen and connect her characters: Jo's newly discovered biological father, Sadiq, is a Pakistani taken as a child from his mother Deena, who moved to America, remarried, had another child, and later briefly reunites with Sadiq. Angela, Jo's mother, also abandoned by a parent, went on a journey of her own almost 20 years ago that led to a brief affair with Sadiq (hence: Jo). As each character's life unfolds, Haji's focus expands to the breaking point, covering Christian missionaries and fundamentalists, the Sunni-Shia conflict, the status of women in Muslim society, the suffering of soldiers, the U.S. military's handling of Iraqi civilians, and enhanced interrogation tactics. Somewhere in all of this is a family story, and the many threads eventually cleave to illustrate how a complicated blend of race, religion, culture, and tradition can create peace rather than conflict.

January 1, 2011

Born into an Evangelical Christian family, Jo March (obviously independent-minded, with that name) has her doubts. To find some answers, she embarks on a journey--even heading to the Middle East--and meets some previously unknown relations whose fate is tied to hers. Haji did nicely with her debut, The Writing on My Forehead, and her new novel will appeal to readers interested in the clash of cultures. Promising for discussion, as the reading group guide suggests.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2011
The child of devout Christian parents, teenager Jo March (yes, her mother loved Little Women and married a man named March) is unprepared when a simple genetics lesson proves that something is off in her family. She confronts her mother, who admits the startling truth. Jo and her twin brother are the products of a teenage tryst with a man named Sadiq. Jo seeks Sadiq out, then is horrified to learn that he met her mother after being sent away by his family in Pakistan for taking the life of a woman in a hit-and-run accident. After hearing Sadiq's story, Jo decides she wants nothing more to do with him, but when her career working for a defense contractor brings her into contact with the son of the woman Sadiq killed, Jo realizes that turning her back on her family is not as easy as she believed. Weaving together the story of Jo's parents and grandparents, Haji's follow up to The Writing on My Forehead (2009) is a moving multigenerational story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)