Native Believer

March 15, 2016
A secular Muslim searches for his place in America in this biting satire from first-time novelist Eteraz (Falsipedies and Fibsiennes, 2014, etc.). As a teenager growing up in Alabama, M. saw Islam as "one of those things that foreigners did, like soccer, or kung fu, or Bollywood." So it comes as something of a surprise to this second-generation American, now living in Philadelphia, when he loses his PR job after his new boss, at M.'s apartment for a work party, spots a Quran high atop a bookshelf and determines M. isn't "democratic" enough for the "business-culture" of the company. A "protected" child of the 1980s and '90s who eats "the West, breakfast, lunch, and dinner," M. feels particularly unequipped to fight discrimination. "The bespectacled gadfly from Chicago I had grown up with wasn't Malik El-Shabazz but Steven Q. Urkel," he laments early on. At the insistence of his wife, Marie-Anne, a white South Carolinian suffering a cortisol imbalance that's made her gain tremendous weight, M. becomes a freelance marketing consultant and "social-media maven." Soon he's immersed in a diverse set of Muslim communities: creating a PowerPoint for a "playboy princeling" hoping to sell exercise DVDs to American audiences, partying with the members of a punk rock/rap group called the Gay Commie Muzzies, under the employ of the "Muslim Outreach Coordinator" at the State Department. Though at times in need of a trim (M.'s interior monologues can feel repetitive by book's end), Eteraz's narrative is witty and unpredictable. Marie-Anne, whose weight and domineering nature make her at first seem potentially cartoonish, becomes more complicated as the novel progresses, and the darkly comic ending is pleasingly macabre. As for M., in this identity-obsessed dandy, Eteraz has created a perfect protagonist for the times. A provocative and very funny exploration of Muslim identity in America today.

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April 15, 2016

M. is a second-generation American uninterested in religion, in love with his gorgeous Amazon of a wife, and determined to enjoy the fruits of his homeland. But at the party he and Anne-Marie are hosting for colleagues, trouble starts to surface. Anne-Marie again voices her opposition to having children, and M.'s overbearing boss is dismayed to discover a Qu'ran shoved away on a top shelf (above the works of Nietzsche and Goethe, no less). Suddenly M.'s professional prospects dim, and he launches a freelance career that brings him in touch with Muslim communities. VERDICT In bitingly funny prose, first novelist Eteraz (known for his memoir, Children of Dust) sums up the pain and contradictions of an American not wanting to be categorized; the ending is a bang-up surprise.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2016
This poignant and profoundly funny first novel follows a young, lapsed Muslim in post-9/11 Philadelphia, a city on edge long after the attacks. The narrator, M., struggles with familiar grumblings at the workplace and romantic quirks in his marriage, until an uncomfortable encounter with his new boss leaves him abruptly unemployed, with a strong suspicion that religious discrimination influenced his firing. His newfound free time frustrates his wife, Marie-Anne, and infuriates his friend, Richard, who insists on filing a lawsuit. Eteraz, the author of Children of Dust (2009), a memoir about his childhood in Pakistan and young adulthood in the U.S., draws on enough autobiography to make M. relatable and reliable as the faith of his forefathers resurfaces in his life. Ambigious at times, Eteraz atones for his wordiness with a plethora of metaphors, such as comparing the divine lips of a French actress to the hull of a prophetic ark or the arc of a perfect plot. Eteraz combines masterful storytelling with intelligent commentary to create a nuanced work of social and political art.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)