The Runaways

June 15, 2020
Bhutto's second novel explores Islamist extremism and its roots in class divides through the stories of young people. The narration of this novel switches among the points of view of three characters representing different socio-economic groups. Anita Rose lives in a Karachi slum with her mother, Zenobia, and brother, Ezra. The family subsists on Zenobia's earnings as a masseuse until Ezra advances their lot through what all evidence points to as organized crime. Anita befriends Osama, an elderly neighbor, who imparts to her an enthusiasm for leftist ideology and Urdu poetry. First seen at his family's London pied-�-terre, Monty is the cosseted son of a Karachi real estate mogul. British-born Sunny, ne Salman, has disappointed his middle-class father's expectations for him in Portsmouth, England, where "Pa" had immigrated from his native Lucknow with high hopes of seamless assimilation. Now, instead of pursuing a business degree, Sunny falls under the spell of his charismatic cousin Oz, recently returned from a jihadi camp in Syria. These are all, in a sense, narratives of exile and renunciation, and their poignancy is deepened by the characters' inner struggles. At 17, Anita has reinvented herself--at the elite private school she attends, thanks to Ezra--as the ineffably cool "Layla." Her romance with her classmate Monty, who adores her, is overshadowed by his privilege. Layla will become a jihadi influencer whose videos inspire adherents of the ISIS-like Ummah Movement. Her transition from promising student to outlaw is linked--we won't immediately learn how--to a fateful trip to Dubai at Ezra's behest. Sunny forswears his passion for music to join Ummah in Mosul, and he and Monty, who has joined to search for Layla, are sent on a mission. Their internet access, even on a trek across the desert, proves to be more curse than blessing. In fact, social media exposures--some a little too conveniently timed--are a major driver of plot twists here. An astute and searing take on anomie and radicalization.

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July 1, 2020
Young people searching for connection and meaning turn to radicalism in Bhutto's (The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, 2015) dramatic, character-driven second novel. Living in Pakistan, Monty's family is wealthy and privileged. He rarely considers the other half until he meets and falls for Layla, who attends his westernized school but comes from a poor area of town and tries to open Monty's eyes to the iniquities all around him. Anita Rose also lives in a poorer section of Karachi and is determined to be something more than a servant like her mother. Sunny is the son of Pakistani migrants who emigrated to London and is struggling to reconcile his identity as he questions his sexuality. Their families all expect them to stay in their lane but their yearning for something meaningful leads them each down the path of extremism. With poetic writing, Bhutto slowly reveals the characters' connections as well as some compelling twists, and makes a convincing case that extremism, especially for young people, is driven more by feelings of alienation than religion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

August 17, 2020
Bhutto (The Shadow of the Crescent Moon) tells the wrenching story of three young people brought together in a jihadist training camp run in Iraq. Anita Rose Joseph, 16, grows up poor in Karachi and yearns for the kind of life enjoyed by her better-off schoolmates. After a neighbor introduces her to political radicalism via Urdru poetry, she is eager to learn more. Meanwhile, Sunny Jamil, 19, grows up in Portsmouth, England, a motherless child of Pakistani immigrants. Unsure about his sexuality and not fitting in with the other immigrant families or the English around him, he is lured out of isolation by jihadi radicalization. Monty Ahmed, 17, comes from a wealthy family Pakistani family and is relatively happy. After his girlfriend, Layla, disappears from Karachi, he follows her footsteps to Mosul, where new recruits are lured by her calls to arms via LiveLeak. Told in alternate chapters from the points of view of all three protagonists, the book moves forward and backward, explaining their motivations in spare, almost jaunty prose that elicits empathy for the troubled teens and stands in stark contrast to the seriousness of the plot. Bhutto’s penetrating character study convinces all the way to the inevitable bloody end.