Stealing Nasreen by Farzana Doctor

[zahrawithaz]

Stealing Nasreen, a first novel, tells the story of three Gujarati-Canadians: two recent immigrants, a husband and wife, who separately develop obsessions with Nasreen, a second-generation Gujarati-Canadian lesbian.

Shaffiq, an accountant in India, moved his family because anti-Muslim bias had barred him from promotion. But in Canada he is only been

Comments

[brooklynmili]

Sorry to comment so randomly, but this line jumped out at me:

I enjoyed this book the way I enjoy some mediocre lesbian films; I found it a pleasant diversion but was acutely aware that my own hunger to read about queer life and characters was a large part of why.

This really does drive a lot of queer cultural production/consumption, doesn't it? (And I'd guess a lot of POC production/consumption, too?)

I wish books like this got better edited--both in the copyediting sense, and the sense of having someone to work the writer through some of her issues with the text--like the flat writing, or the bad pacing. They're stories that we want to read. Sigh.

[holyschist]

That jumped out at me, too, so hard. Sigh.

[wordsofastory]

Yeah, thirded. I've read a great deal of books that fall into this category.

[zahrawithaz]

Glad the line resonated for you (and you and you)--it was the best way for me to sum up my reaction to the book. I have read and watched a fair amount of queer and/or POC media for that reason. Not a problem in itself, but a pointer to the big issue, which is how starved we all are for stories that aren't white and/or straight.

I agree with you strongly about the editing. To be perfectly honest, I think Doctor has some talent but like most writers needs to write a few practice novels first, and she isn't being served by being published without enough editing too early. I would still look for her later work, though, because as you say we want these stories.