It's been awhile since I've posted an entry on this blog-- which I hope to neglect less in coming months. As in previous summers, I'm alternating 10-day stays in my city home and the tiny house near Guffey--actually a park model RV that I put on my friend Linda's land almost 20 years ago. I'm at my tiny house (a/k/a Mudbiscuit) writing this, having just finished reading a very special book.
Summertime...a season when time seems to stretch and there is more time for reading. I remember many childhood summer afternoons heading for the library and returning home with an armload of books. Now, decades, later my library visits are mostly online, with my kindle and Libby library app having replaced print for the most part. At the same time, I welcome print when it comes my way, as did a pre-pub copy of The Shawl of Midnight. In this blog entry, I'd like to share why it impressed me so much.
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In this novel, Jacqueline St. Joan* has written a powerful story that brings the reader many gifts: a young woman’s coming of age story, a lens into the lives of women in Pakistan, a compelling suspense novel, and a tribute to the resilience of women who fight back. It’s a great read and sequel to the author’s first novel centered in Pakistan, My Sisters Made of Light.
The story begins in 1996 in Islamabad with an assassination of a women’s rights advocate and the birth of her daughter, the story’s protagonist, Nafeesa. Her mother, Meena, is shot at a rally demanding the release of her sister, Baji Ujala, jailed for aiding women targeted for honor killings. Also at the rally is another activist sister demanding justice for Baji Ujula, and she has been the victim of an acid attack. The rally ends in gunshots, and at the hospital Meena dies as her daughter is born. Baji Ujala escapes from jail and the sisters scatter, creating new lives in other places.
Fast forward 18 years and Nafeesa is entering adulthood, carefully shielded from the family history by her protective father. But she learns enough to know that she wants and needs to learn more. And this is where the real story begins. Nafeesa’s dying grandfather wants to see his daughters one more time, and a heroine’s mission begins: the journey to reunite them all in their original home.
Like many heroes, Nafeesa benefits from a family heirloom that comes in handy at just the right moment, and her supernatural power comes from myth—specifically, the stories of Durga (Kali) and Mahakali. No magic amulets come into play but the power of those stories boost Nafeesa’s courage and strength. She needs both on the perilous journey she’s on—involving nighttime treks in Kashmir, a heavily militarized area on the border of India and Pakistan. How to stay safe? She is ambivalent about carrying a pistol during one episode when she must travel through a forest to find help for an injured aunt. A vision or hallucination—we need not decide which—of Mahakali appears. This terrifying goddess, Protector of the Himalayas, helps Nafeesa find courage. And then there’s Durga (Kali) wearing a golden crown and riding the back of a lion, one of her seven arms holding a sword aloft. Who wouldn’t find more than a bit of back-up in that?
Thanks to St. Joan ’s skill, I could begin to feel the texture of this land with its extremes of temperature and altitude, as well as many cultural features. Dance, clothing, food and animals are woven into the story to underscore readers’ sense of place. I especially enjoyed references to birds—symbols of freedom or portents of change perhaps. And then there’s history interwoven through it all. Much of the story centers on the borderland of Kashmir, still a contested land half a century after the wrenching partition of India into two countries—Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-dominant India.
Leaving Pakistan to connect with another aunt in Mumbai, India, our heroine broadens her vision when she discovers that her aunt is in a lesbian relationship, resulting in a broadening of her vision of family as well as culture. There are fragments of poetry too in this book, supporting the theme that all journeys have a physical and spiritual dimension.
Nafeesa’s story is a complex one—more than simply a tale of finding the fortitude to reach a goal. She has moments of doubt and confusion—needing to decide who to believe amid strangers who may not be what they seem. But there are enough helpers along the way, and the journey continues. Yet as we all know, one journey leads to another, and by the end of the story all of the well-developed characters in it must make new decisions about where there lives should go.
St. Joan delved deep into Pakistani culture before writing this book and its predecessor, My Sisters Made of Light. As she explains in an author’s note to The Shawl of Midnight, she had the good fortune to meet “the Harriet Tubman of Pakistan” nearly 20 years ago. Aisha (pseudonym) was a teacher who was also active in the rescue of women targeted for “honor crimes” by their families. As St. Joan explains it, “honor crimes are a patriarchal practice (not based in religion) by which family members target and punish (sometimes through killing) another family member who is perceived to have transgressed norms, usually related to sexuality, in order to restore the family’s ‘honor’.”
St. Joan asked for permission to write Aisha’s story and the two began a collaboration which resulted in these two historically-based books of fiction. As a reader I felt drawn into both stories and found myself more interested in how women’s rights were developing in Pakistan. Coincidentally, while watching the PBS Newshour one evening, I saw a film segment Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, the director of a the new Ms Marvel series which features a young Muslim woman as hero. Obaid-Chinoy has also directed two short films, Saving Face (about acid attacks) and Girl in the River (honor killings) which are currently on HBO Max. I have since watched both and recommend them highly as context for The Shawl of Midnight and for a look at feminist resistance in Pakistan.
*Full Disclosure: I am a friend of Jacqueline St. Joan, and as such, may be suspected of writing an overly praise-filled review. Never fear--you see my true opinions above. As a reader, I’m grateful to my friend for writing these books; otherwise I may never have found them given the sea of excellent writing around us all.)
The Shawl of Midnight is published this week (August 8) and is available here in print or ebook.
