Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar

Amy  

fiction, biography

Ayad Akhtar wrote of his experiences growing up as a Pakistani American—his family (both immediate and extended), his faith (Muslim), his career, his opinions about American feelings toward Muslims, Muslims’ feelings about Americans, his memorable experiences, and the important people in his life. These Homeland Elegies are delivered as a group of short stories. Maybe it’s more accurate to call them journal entries.

I found Akhtar’s opinions and experiences fascinating. He hooked me from the beginning based on his feelings and conversations with his father regarding Donald Trump. Then he abandoned that story to move to another time in his life. And so on. Through these stories, the reader gets a deep dive into Akhtar as a person—his beliefs, struggles, and personal stories. It is supposedly a novel—not non-fiction or autobiographical. However, it reads like an autobiography and includes so many personal, unflattering portraits of several people, including his father and himself, that it feels true. The character is himself--his real name, his real career, etc. I wonder which parts were fiction. Since he seemingly includes many real-life people in these accounts, I imagine those have to be true. Perhaps the sex scenes are the fiction?

Akhtar sounds like a level-headed, realistic, creative person struggling to make a living like everyone else. He’s an excellent writer, able to convey both simple and complex thoughts and descriptions with ease. His honest views about living in the United States as a citizen with immigrant parents and their own views of the world felt raw and genuine.  In fact, some of his father’s remarks made me laugh out loud with their sad truth. I am really looking forward to discussing this one at book club!

The author himself narrated the novel and he was terrific with his naturally animated, energetic voice. And I loved his accents, particularly when voicing his parents. As characters, they jumped off the page (er…..recording).  He related conversations with perfect voice acting.  I love when authors narrate their own novels, and Akhtar is one of the best I’ve listened to.  However, the one criticism I have is that he sometimes spoke too quickly during passages that included lots of clever wording and thoughts, often during lists of impressions separated by commas.  I had to replay these sections a few times, including the Overture at the very beginning, in order to completely comprehend and digest his words.  They were so rich and full of important stuff and he flew through these sections, sadly. If I were reading the novel, I would have savored these sections and read them carefully, likely re-reading them a time or two to get the full, complete picture. I tried slowing down his narration in the app but the only choice was way too slow so I listened to it at normal speed.  I’ll give him an A.