The Shadow of the Crescent Moon

January 26, 2015
Bhutto’s promising debut novel is set in the town of Mir Ali, in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The story begins and ends one tragic Friday morning. Aman Erun, the eldest of three brothers, has returned to his native Mir Ali from America an educated, ambitious businessman. The middle brother, Sikandar, a doctor who lost a son to Taliban violence, has chosen to stay in his war-torn birthplace, accepting the unending conflict while watching his wife, Mina, succumb to madness. The youngest, Hayat, is a quiet member of a Shia separatist group and has become involved with Samarra, the headstrong girlfriend Aman Erun left behind when he went to America. In flashbacks we learn of Aman Erun’s escape to America, and of Sikandar’s crippling cowardice when he and Mina are confronted by Taliban rebels. In the end, Mina and Samarra prove to be stronger and more courageous than all three brothers put together. Bhutto was 14 when her father was murdered, and she’s the young niece of Benazir Bhutto (a Pakistani politician and two-term prime minister who herself was assassinated in 2007). There are large swaths of political rumination: these passages are enlightening but ultimately unnecessary. Though the book is marred by an ending that strains belief, Bhutto’s characters and story are compelling and richly drawn.

February 1, 2015
Set in the small Pakistani border town of Mir Ali, this novel rotates among the points of view of three brothers, telling stories of past and present violence and building to a fever pitch of terror. For the very first time, the brothers have decided not to pray together to celebrate Eid because "[i]t is too dangerous, too risky, to place all the family together in one mosque that could easily be hit" by bombs, even though they're unsure whom the assailants might be. The book takes place during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and Pakistan has become a collateral battleground for America's enemies and allies alike. It is Hayat, the youngest brother, who has decided which mosque each family member will pray at, and it is he who will bear the burden of responsibility if any of those mosques are hit, for Hayat continues the rebel activism of their departed father, Inayat, who, along with his fellow townsmen of Mir Ali, sought independence from Pakistan and its excessive injustices in the 1950s. Aman Erum, the expatriate eldest brother, turned away from this legacy to forge a business in America in exchange for passing valuable intelligence on the rebels to the state. And Sikandar, the middle brother, shunned politics in order to heal others through medicine, only to lose his young son in the political crossfire anyway. But with Aman Erum's recent return, the truth about what happened to his fiancee, Samarra Afridi, at the hands of the Pakistani state military incites the rebel faction to dramatic action. Bhutto (Songs of Blood and Sword, 2011, etc.) has crafted a timely, earnest portrait of a family torn apart by the machinations of other people's war games and desperately trying to survive.

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February 15, 2015
Three brothers gather for breakfast in a small town near the Afghan border. Though it is a holiday, they are too afraid of a militants' strike to attend the mosque together, so after consuming their meal, they part ways. Aman Erum, the only brother to have left Pakistan for an education in America, takes a taxi to pray alone and deal with troubling memories. Sikandar, a doctor, is called to pick up his grieving, unstable wife, and when the couple is detained by the Taliban, they must lean on each other to escape. Hayat, the youngest brother, goes to a meeting of rebels at the local college with Mina, a girl once betrothed to Aman Erum but now even more haunted by the past than he. All five individuals face daunting risks, and must reconcile their histories to create hope for their futures. Descriptions of customs and etiquette are offset by reports of daily atrocities and oppression in this important first novel. Through the lens of one family's tragedy, this poignant read holds vast contemporary relevance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

October 1, 2014

In a small Pakistani town near Afghanistan, under invasion by America, three brothers meet for breakfast, but it's the troubled wife of one and the crusading former girlfriend of another who dominate this story of lives on the edge. The granddaughter and niece of two former Pakistani prime ministers, practiced writer Bhutto has published poetry (Whispers of the Desert) and memoir (Songs of Blood and Sword); her first novel was a New Statesman (UK) Book of the Year.

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