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‘Haiti: The Aftershocks of History,’ ‘American Dervish,’ ‘The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children’

The Fine Print

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 22, 2012|By Kate Tuttle

AMERICAN DERVISH

By Ayad Akhtar

Little, Brown, 368 pp., $24.99

Hayat Shah is 10 when his mother’s best friend, Mina, comes from Pakistan to live with Hayat’s family in Milwaukee. Mina is fleeing a horrific divorce, young son Imran in tow; her arrival brings new life to the Shah household (where as Hayat points out, his mother had “been miserable for years’’ over her husband’s drinking and philandering). Hayat is living a comfortable suburban life - this being the pivot point between the ‘70s and the ‘80s, family time centers on evening viewings of “CHiPs’’ and “Three’s Company’’ - yet between his neurologist father’s brooding and his mother’s relentless nagging, Hayat says he’s “not convinced we were prepared to be happy.’’

In this remarkably self-assured, infectiously readable debut novel, Ayad Akhtar beams readers directly inside Hayat’s young mind. His growing love for Mina - as his revered “auntie,’’ focus of his budding sexual interest, and teacher of Islam through nightly Koran readings - feels sweet yet fraught. After listening to her read these lyrical holy verses, Hayat floats back to his room “my heart softened and sweet, my senses heightened.’’ Of course it’s headed toward disaster, but Akhtar lets the ensuring calamities unfold without melodrama. Along the way, Hayat learns that his beloved adults’ worst flaws sometimes coincide with what is most lovable and laudable about them, and that faith, mystery, and love have less to do with any religious text than with the human heart.

HAITI: The Aftershocks of History

By Laurent Dubois

Metropolitan, 448 pp., $32

When an earthquake devastated Haiti in 2010, a worldwide outpouring of prayers, donations, and charitable help came bundled with news coverage that stressed the country’s difficult history, focused on its poverty, and in the worst cases appeared to blame the Haitian people for the disaster. As Laurent Dubois makes clear in his sweeping, passionate history of Haiti, the tendency of outsiders to express “overwhelmingly hostile and distorted views’’ of the country is nothing new.