Navdeep Singh Dhillon

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First Lines From 54 Novels by People of Color in 2015

December 24, 2015 by Navdeep

First Lines From 54 Novels by People of Color in 2015
Kickass Diverse Novels of 2015

Kickass Diverse Novels of 2015

Short sentences, long sentences, suspenseful sentences, funny sentences, profound sentences, to-the-point sentences, meandering flowery sentences; young adult, middle grade, romance, literary, women’s fiction, science fiction, fantasy, I love them all. Nothing gives me more joy than than an electric first line of a novel or a short story collection – what Sona refers to as pure agony.

Last year I wrote two book lists over Christmas and New Year on my site: 8 Short Story Writers of Color and First Lines From 36 Novelists of Color, as well as one on travel memoirs that don’t involve middle-class white women or white boys leaving their corporate jobs and going to brown and black countries to discover themselves (and so can you!). I originally wrote the lists because it was perplexing to hear people, including my incredibly diverse and smart creative writing students, drinking the Koolaid and parroting the lie that people of color either aren’t writing novels, or the novels aren’t that “great” (because there aren’t any mediocre novels by white men populating the book lists).

This year my list includes 54 novels and these are just the books I liked. My criteria is not particularly complex and is pretty much the exact same criteria I use in deciding to spend cash money to buy all of these books in the first place (except for Tiny Pretty Things, which I got for free due to my intimate relationship with one of the writers: my wife, Sona Charaipotra).

My criteria:

  1. A gorgeous first sentence that invites you to sink into a large, fluffy chair, with a warm cup of cha, and an aromatic novel.
  2. The authors and the content of their stories have some level of diversity. People of color writing novels filled with white people is just not my thing. I’d rather read white people writing about white people.
  3. Everything was published in 2015. In rare cases where a novel was published in England or South Africa in 2015, but doesn’t come out in the U.S. until 2016 I’ve put a link to the available e-book. Aside from Toni Morrison being on the top of the list, this list is not in any particular order. They all have gorgeous first lines that drew me in.

Let 2016 be the year of more mirrors and windows. And to diverse vampires . .  .   As usual, Junot Diaz perfectly sums it all up:

“You guys know about vampires? You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist?” And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.” ~ Junot Díaz

God Help the Child by Toni Morrison

God Help the Child by Toni Morrison

1. “It’s not my fault.”

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Re Jane by Patricia Park

Re Jane by Patricia Park

2. “Home was this northeastern knot of Queens, in the town (if you could call it a town) of Flushing.”

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Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton

Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton

3. “It always feels like death.”

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Mr. and Mrs. Doctor by Julie Iromuanya

Mr. and Mrs. Doctor by Julie Iromuanya

4. “Everything Job Ogbonnaya knew about sex he learned from American pornography.”

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The Tusk That Did The Damage by Tania James

The Tusk That Did The Damage by Tania James

5. “He would come to be called the Gravedigger.”

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Delicious Foods by James Hannaham

Delicious Foods by James Hannaham

6. “After escaping the farm, Eddie drove through the night.”

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Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett

Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett

7. “Furo Wariboko awoke this morning to find that dreams can lose their way and turn up on the wrong side of sleep.”

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Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

8. “Sierra? What are you staring at?”

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The Bollywood Bride by Sonali Dev

The Bollywood Bride by Sonali Dev

9. “How do you explain losing your words to someone?”

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Ruby by Cynthia Bend

Ruby by Cynthia Bend

10. “Ruby Bell was a constant reminder of what could befall a woman whose shoe heels were too high.”

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The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

11. “It would not be a welcome dawn.”

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An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

12. “My big brother reaches home in the dark hours before dawn, when even ghosts take their rest.”

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Loving Day by Mat Johnson

Loving Day by Mat Johnson

13. “In the ghetto there is a mansion, and it is my father’s house.”

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Only The Strong by Jabari Asim

Only The Strong by Jabari Asim

14. “Guts Tolliver hadn’t killed a man in two years.”

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Dragonfish by Vu Tran

Dragonfish by Vu Tran

15. “Our first night at sea, you cried for your father.”

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The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness by Kyung-Sook Shin

The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness by Kyung-Sook Shin

16. “I find myself here, in this place where I have never been before, contemplating myself at sixteen.”

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The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson

The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson

17. “The people on the hill liked to say that God’s smile was the sun shining down on them.”


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A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

18. “The eleventh apartment had only one closet, but it did have a sliding glass door that opened onto a small balcony, from which he could see a man sitting across the way, outdoors in only a T-shirt and shorts even though it was October, smoking.”

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Frog by Mo Yan

Frog by Mo Yan

19. “Dear Sugitani Akhito Sensei, it has been nearly a month since we said goodbye, but I can relive virtually every moment of our time together in my hometown as if it were yesterday.”

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The Way Things Were by Aatish Taseer

The Way Things Were by Aatish Taseer

20. “Skanda is deep into his translation of The Birth of Kumara when his mother calls to say his father is on his deathbed”

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The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

21. “I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces.”

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Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet

Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet

22. “Canals zigzag across the city I used to call home.”

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In The Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib

In The Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib

23. “When Khaled fell sick at age nine, his grandmother descended on his parents’ house and promised him healing.”

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Mayumi and the sea of happiness by Jennifer Tseng

Mayumi and the sea of happiness by Jennifer Tseng

24. “It began at the library.”

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Blue Sun, Yellow Sky by Jaime Jo Hoang

Blue Sun, Yellow Sky by Jaime Jo Hoang

25. “Have you ever noticed that fire hydrants are rarely alike in shape or color?”

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White Light by Vanessa Garcia

White Light by Vanessa Garcia

26. “Sometimes you wake up with a hole in your heart and you’re not sure why.”

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The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli

The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli

27. “I’m the best auctioneer in the world, but no one knows it because I’m a discreet sort of man.”

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More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

28. “It turns out the Leteo procedure isn’t bullshit.”

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The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

29. “The brown ant had already forgotten its home.”

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The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa

The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa

30. “Felícito Yanaqué, the owner of the Narihualá Transport Company, left his house that morning, as he did every morning Monday to Saturday, at exactly seven thirty, after doing half an hour of qigong, taking a cold shower, and preparing his usual breakfast: coffee with goat’s milk and toast with butter and a few drops of raw chancaca honey.”

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Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian

Orhan’s Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian

31. “They found him inside one of seventeen cauldrons in the courtyard, steeping in an indigo dye two shades darker than the summer sky.”

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Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam

Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam

32. “Girls, everywhere.”

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The Distant Marvels by Chantel Acevedo

The Distant Marvels by Chantel Acevedo


33. “An unexpected envelope was delivered to me two months ago, on the first day of August.”

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The Woman Who Read Too Much by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani

The Woman Who Read Too Much by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani

34. “When the Shah was shot, he staggered several places in the shrine and fell stone dead in the lap of an old beggar woman.”

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Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

35. “Midway between Old Oba-Nnewi Road and New Oba-Nnewi Road, in that general area bound by the village church and the primary school, and where Mmiri John Road drops off only to begin again, stood our house in Ojoto.”

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All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

36. “Your left! Your left! Your left-right-left! Your left! Your left! Your left-right-left!”

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Odysseus Abroad by Amit Chaudhuri

Odysseus Abroad by Amit Chaudhuri

37. “He got up at around nine o’clock with the usual feeling of dread.”

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Arrows of Rain by Okey Ndibe

Arrows of Rain by Okey Ndibe

38. “The young woman lay on the sands, her mouth frozen in a smile, as if nothing in the whole world surpassed the sweetness death.”

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The Given World by Marian Palaia

The Given World by Marian Palaia

39. “Jasper says this is the kind of heat that makes people in Australia shoot each other.”

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A Bad Character by Deepti Kapoor

A Bad Character by Deepti Kapoor

40. “My boyfriend died when I was twenty-one.”

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Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

41. “When Madge arrived in Chicago, it was an unusually windless summer day, and she could not take her eyes off the bluest water she had ever seen.”

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Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan

Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan

42. “One afternoon on a weekend in March, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years.”

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The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa Al Aswany

The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa Al Aswany

43. “My wife finally understood that I needed some time on my own.”

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Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

44. “I looked like a girl you’d expect to see on a city bus, reading some clothbound book from the library about plants or geography, perhaps wearing a net over my light brown hair.”

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Jam on The Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett

Jam on The Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett

45. “Ivoe liked to carry on about all she could do.”

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Butterfly Fish by Irenosen Okojie

Butterfly Fish by Irenosen Okojie

46. “A green palm wine bottle rolled on the wet London Street.”

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A Map of Betrayal by Ha Jin

A Map of Betrayal by Ha Jin

47. “My mother used to say, ‘Lillian, as long as I’m alive, you must have nothing to do with that woman.”

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Mirages of the Mind by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi

Mirages of the Mind by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi

48. “He’s human, but don’t look into his eyes.”

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Diamond Head by Cecily Wong

Diamond Head by Cecily Wong


49. “Inside the car, it smells like hibiscus.”

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Sweet Medicine by Panashe Chigumadzi

Sweet Medicine by Panashe Chigumadzi

50.  “‘You cannot fight an evil disease with sweet medicine,’ says the n’anga.”

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Serpentine by Cindy Pon

Serpentine by Cindy Pon

51. “The mountain was still shrouded in mist.”

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What Will People Say by Rehana Rousouw

What Will People Say by Rehana Rousouw

52. “The South-Easter lifted the smell of pig manure spread across farms in Phiippi, crossed Lansdowne Road and dumped it like a wet poep over Hanover Park.”

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The Offering by Salah el Moncef

The Offering by Salah el Moncef

53. “There is something oddly stark and unqualified about the memory of pain visited upon others: a feelings of guilt and unworthiness that is so pervasive it becomes an integral part of everything you are; so total that it strips you of every sense of nuance and proportion, every shade of self-justification that might alleviate your feeling of culpability.”

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Don't Let Him Know by Sandip Roy

Don’t Let Him Know by Sandip Roy

54. “‘Ma,’ said Amit, ‘I have to talk to you about something.'”

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Filed Under: Book Lists Tagged With: diverse novels, diversity in YA, Navdeep Singh Dhillon, We Need Diverse Books

A Summer Reading List That Won’t Make Your Teeth Hurt

May 25, 2015 by Navdeep 3 Comments

A Summer Reading List That Won’t Make Your Teeth Hurt

Summer is here! I know this because the all-white summer reading lists have begun making their rounds. There was an amusing post by Jason Parham at Gawker with the best title: NYT Summer Reading List Finally Achieves 100 percent Whiteness. The sad thing is that the New York Times is not alone in their 100% White list. And in the coming weeks and months there will be plenty of thoroughly white reading lists, or ones with the same one or two People of Color.

The titles of the reading lists published last week: Beyond the Best-Sellers (NPR), Cool Books for Hot Summer Days (NYT), and 10 Best Novels for Summer Reading (Kirkus). When the lists are diverse, like for Black History Month, it’s up there in the title front and center, so white people know what to expect and don’t abruptly start screaming, “CANNOT RELATE. CANNOT RELATE,” causing mass head explosions all over America. Similarly, using the word “white” in the title would help prepare us People of Color for the blinding whiteness of these lists. It could be something really subtle, like Cool WHITE Books for Hot Summer Days, More Awesome Books by WHITE people to read over Summer.

The lists NPR, the New York Times, and Kirkus came out with featured some fine novels, but the implications of not including even a single author of color are telling. It shouldn’t surprise me when these lists come out every season, every year, and yet it does. These are publications that occasionally review some wonderful books by diverse authors with careful analysis, frequently recommending that people immediately pick these novels up. Then some alien comes in to do their roundups and fills these best-of lists with white people.

Thankfully, this totally boring landscape is being challenged. By bloggers, writers, and social media mavericks. DiversityinYA.com came out with a list: Ten New and Debut Asian American Authors to Read This Summer. And Liberty Hardy over at Book Riot wrote Recommended Summer Reading: An Alternative List  with some great selections by diverse authors, including Tiny Pretty Things! It’s bizarre to me that we have become conditioned to think of a list like the one Book Riot created as “alternative.” Alternative to what? We’re not even supposed to say the word white when it comes to these white book lists. We’re supposed to use terms like “mainstream” and pretend these words don’t pack systematic power in their syllables.

Last year I wrote two lists that could have been much longer: First Lines From 37 Novelists of Color You Missed in 2014 and First Lines From 9 Standout Short Story Collections by Writers of Color in 2014 to counteract the thoroughly white end-of-the-year book lists that made it seem like people of colour had vanished off the face of the earth. Poof, just like that. Hopefully, this December something magical will happen and the book lists will be diverse.

It’s not even June and there have been so many phenomenal books that have already come out by writers of color. I wouldn’t get anything done over summer if I started compiling them all. Just to start, I would add Toni Morrisson, Mat Johnson, Marjorie Liu, Tania James, and tons of YA and MG writers whose books are stacked up on Sona’s desk and on our bookshelves. To narrow down the list significantly and so I can get back to my reading (very important!), here are Ten Summer Reading picks, all by debut novelists of color who have books coming out in summer. And they’re all perfect for indoor use, outdoor use, and definitely on the sand! If you’re a fellow blogger or on goodreads, please, please, please, compile a list, and link back here! I’d love to read it.

Obviously, I’m starting with Tiny Pretty Things. Because I have no ethics policy. Don’t let Dhonielle’s smile fool you. She is an evil librarian.

Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton (a Cake Literary Project)

Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton (a Cake Literary Project)

1. Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton

Because I’m married to one of the writers (Sona; the other one just comes over a lot and chastises me for not writing), I saw the advanced copy of Tiny Pretty Things in December. It was promptly usurped by my father, Pashaura Singh Dhillon, a 73-year-old Punjabi poet and singer, who spent every moment of our holiday in Puerto Rico immersed in the novel. On the beach. In the bed. On the sofa. In the hammock. In the car. Everywhere. He spoke about the manipulative characters like they were real people (he would argue that they are), and had lots of questions about their motivations. I read the novel and was impressed by the gorgeous language, the deliciously wicked characters, and was genuinely surprised by how much dread I felt at the pit of my stomach when I started turning pages, especially during the many scenes filled with tension. Pretty much from the beginning. It’s been described as Pretty Little Liars meets Black Swan, but I’d describe it more as The Godfather meets Fame with a big dollop of Lord of the Flies.

Tiny Pretty Things opens with a scene from the past: Cassie is used as a foil character to illustrate how Bette has no qualms destroying the weak and trusting to secure her position. A year later, Bette is assured she will be chosen to play the much coveted role of Sugar Plum Fairy and (mini spoiler alert), the role goes to Gigi, the seemingly replacement doe-eyed naive newcomer. Hell very slowly and carefully breaks loose in tensely crafted scenes. The three narrators, Bette, June, and Gigi, are brilliantly nuanced, where race and culture are intertwined into the narrative to add multiple layers of complexity.

Gigi adjusts to the culture shock of being in this new ballet school, not because she’s new to dancing or has suddenly realized she’s black, but because the cutthroat culture of the school is so different from the one she went to in California, and her blackness is what makes her different here and viewed as a potential threat. A negative. June is Korean and from Queens. Her character draws heavily from those things.

This is how you write diversity: by being unable to separate a person from what makes them diverse. You can’t change June to some other random Asian or make Gigi not black or Bette non-white without performing literary lobotomy. It would completely change the characters and render many of the plot points unbelievable.

My dad is squarely Team Gigi because, as he puts it, “she just wants to dance. Everyone else is busy trying to break each other’s legs.” I like Gigi because she is a pure soul in a den of evil, but I am also very drawn to June. Bette is pure viciousness and reeks of rich white privilege, so I have zero interest in seeing her get what she wants. You had better pick this mofo up and read through it before the hashtags #TeamGigi, #TeamBette, #TeamJune start trending and you start to really feel the pressure. No matter what I decide, I’ll always be #TeamSona and #TeamCake. (May 26)

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Mayumi And The Sea Of Happiness By Jennifer Tseng

Mayumi And The Sea Of Happiness By Jennifer Tseng

2. Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness by Jennifer Tseng

I took a class with Kent Caroll, editor of Europa, a few years ago at the CUNY Writers’ Institute and loved the aesthetics and experience Europa brings to their novels: beautiful, brightly colored book covers, with stories that center on conflicted characters and choices they make with deeply profound themes and revelations and repercussions. They are all exquisitely written with slow, deliberate sentences. But holy hell were the books overwhelmingly white. So I was ecstatic to see this and elated with the premise that it couldn’t be more PERFECT for the summer.
Mayumi Saito lives on a small island off the coast of New England. She’s a bored wife and mother, middle-aged, and a librarian with ample time for observation of human nature. Her love is for books. One day, a 17-year-old boy walks in and a slow relationship builds, fueled by passion and refocuses her role as an observer, and causes her to re-evaluate her life and the roles she plays for others. Structurally, it reminds me of Elena Ferrante’s, Days of Abandonment, (also by Europa), where the main character’s husband abruptly leaves her for another woman after fifteen years of marriage. She quickly descends into a mental breakdown and her anguish is seen through violence, obsession, and the neglect of her children. In Ferrante’s novel, the major life moments unfold in quick sentences, like a Russian novel. Like Boris Pasternak’s, Dr. Zhivago: “And then they were poor.” Done.
This novel is much slower, turning the knife, with yearning, and Mayumi is at the center of it all.  She isn’t a victim of circumstance, of being put into a situation she is forced to react to. She makes the decisions that move this story forward, that is the source of tension, heartbreak. She actively makes the choice to pursue this doomed affair and further complicates things by becoming friends with the boy’s mother. Content-wise, the parallels with another Russian, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita are obvious, but this is a very multi-layered story with many influences, it would be a mistake to use large brushstrokes and paint this into a corner. This is literally set in the summer. On a sea side. Bring some wine and a beach blanket! (May 26)

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In The Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib

In The Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib

3. In the Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib

Rajia Hassib’s debut is phenomenal. She tackles the complex emotions of the aftermath of grief with grace, and integrates the complexity of Islam and culture and immigration so beautifully. In a small New Jersey town, the Al-Menshawys’ eldest son has killed his ex-girlfriend, then committed suicide. If he was white, it would be brushed aside as him being a troubled kid and just some isolated incident. The story would center on the inner turmoil of the parents, which I’ve read and watched countless times. This adds originality and depth to this well-treaded territory through the lens of an immigration story. Even cliched features of the immigration story like assimilation are rendered complex. The complication here isn’t that they’re Muslim or Egyptian or generic immigrants or that they’re hyphenated Americans. It’s how all of these identity markers are interpreted by the larger community and how that forces this family to react and reshape their grief. They don’t just get to grieve this senseless act. It’s the story of how this family picks up the pieces. Rumors abound about the troubled teen’s links with terrorism, and each family member reacts in a different way. The mother is completely grief-stricken and the sister starts becoming more religious. The father and brother want to rejoin the community and not draw attention to their individuality. The entire novel takes place over five days, but transports the reader through time, from 1985 to the present. (August 11)

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Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet

Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet

4. Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet

I’ve often wondered about the experiences of minorities at Ivy League colleges, and this novel explores this with some real depth. It thankfully explores the lives of its main characters outside of the university and renders what could easily become cliche into something meaningful. Without telling her family, Liz applies to an elite college and makes the decision to leave Miami to attend, which creates a fall out back in Miami. Her Cuban parents are in the midst of a nasty divorce, and the father sells their only home, leaving the mother with unstable income and an unstable place to stay. At college, Liz suddenly feels like a minority, something she never really felt in Miami, and has to deal with the strangeness of these feelings, as well as adjusting to the social and academic rigors. There is also the news story of Ariel Hernandez, the little boy who arrived on the shores of Miami illegally on a raft from Cuba that caused a media frenzy with the popular image of a terrified little boy crying while a SWAT team hauled him away from his relatives. The father ended up taking him back to Cuba. The story embroils the family and fills the story with tension and the high stakes as Lizet is forced to decide whether to put her individual needs first or that of her family. (August 4)

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The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

5. The Wrath & The Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

Last year, Porochista Khakpour came out with The Last Illusion, a terrifying retelling of one of the stories from the Shahnamah and I inhaled that book. This novel by Renée Ahdieh, a retelling of the framing story of 1001 nights not only got inhaled, it got smoked. The stories from 1,001 Nights I read growing up all used the framing story of Scheherazade and Shahryar, the crazy-ass serial wife murdering king. Shahryar finds out his brother’s wife is unfaithful and decides that all women are the same, so he marries a string of virgins only to execute them the next morning, pre-empting them being unfaithful. Then Scheherazade, the vizier’s daughter volunteers to marry him and tells him (and the reader) a story from the 1,001 nights, but doesn’t end it, so he keeps her alive for 1,001 nights and eventually love happens. Sigh. Young love. Renée’s rendition of this story makes this framing story the Story, adding depth to the characters and thickening the plot. Renée does a wonderful job in creating the world, adds characters, changes characters, all while paying homage to the original story. Shazi’s motives for volunteering to be this insane King’s wife are part of the mystery and lends to building a firecracker of a character, initially out for revenge. An entire kingdom ruled by an insane King who murders the daughters of his people and they are powerless to stop him. Enter Shazi. (May 12)

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All That Followed by Gabriel Urza

All That Followed by Gabriel Urza

6. All That Followed by Gabriel Urza

In a small town in Basque, a young politician is kidnapped and murdered. A young man is jailed and justice seemingly served. But the town has secrets and there is something about it that is unsettling. The murder rocks the community, but five years later everything has more or less returned to normal. Then the Madrid bombings re-opens these wounds. There are many layers to the crime and many complicit. The only three who really know the full story are the politician’s widow, the young man in jail, and an American. It’s part sociological tapestry, part  murder-mystery, with the heaviness of a terrorist attack in the background, cleverly used to tell an equally heavy story of a small Basque town and its secrets (August 4)

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An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

7. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

This novel is fantastic and deserves every single accolade it is getting. It’s fantasy, and like her predecessors, from Rowling to Tolkien to Pratchet, Tahir spends a lot of time meticulously world building for more than just aesthetics, but on systematic and sociological structures. It is peppered with the complexities of colonialism and Empire and how implicit every single person in a system is to make it work. It would be easy to vilify the Empire presented in this novel. They’re brutal, needlessly cruel, subjugate cultures through tested means. But Tahir switches things up and creates a complex, layered Empire, with victims amidst their ranks too.

The story centers on my favourite kind of character: a girl who doesn’t give a fuck. She is headstrong, bold, has plenty of witty comebacks, and knows how to kick some ass. Laia goes undercover into the black heart of the Empire – Blackcliff, an imperial academy –to free her brother, who has become enslaved. The story is so richly written, with fully fleshed out characters, some great plot twists, and it doesn’t shy away from the realities of war and subjugation. Rape as a weapon of war and the offhand objectification of Laia is rendered disturbingly real, and is a constant threat. But it never feels like it’s being used as a plot device, it’s part of this brutal world and a tool of the Empire. Fine, this came out on April 28, but goddamnit it was a pretty warm day. Take this to the beach! (April 28)

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Dragonfish by Vu Tran

Dragonfish by Vu Tran

8. Dragonfish by Vu Tran

Murder. Mystery. Literary Thriller. Noir. Crime Fiction. Whatever you want to call it, it’s riveting and unfurls like the best crime fiction should. Sometimes slowly for that slow burn, sometimes abruptly sending you reeling with its plot. Suzy, Robert’s Vietnamese wife, leaves him. Two years later, she disappears again — leaving behind her new husband. The new husband, a violent Vietnemese criminal, blackmails Robert, a policeman, into finding her for him. Through this case, he uncovers more about the enigmatic Suzy, digging into historical moments like the fall of Saigon, a refugee camp in Malaysia, and a plethora of sins that could unravel everything. In classic noir, as soon as Robert gets closer, that’s when the tensions highest and we’re pulled back. A fantastically crafted tale that weaves in lots of intrigue and a good dollop of history.  (August 3)

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The Sta rSide of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson

The Sta rSide of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson

9. The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson

This is not the Barbados you’ve seen in brochures. It’s the Barbados of a community, of two sisters growing up, of falling in love, of heartbreak, of betrayal, of mystery, and in the grand scheme of things: immigration. Two sisters, 10 and 16, leave Brooklyn to go live with their grandmother in the summer of 1989. The grandmother is a midwife and a spiritual healer. In the hands of many people, it is with the grandmother that things could go horribly, horribly wrong, resulting in what Dhonielle Clayton would call a Minstrel Show. But in Jackson’s safe hands, the familial story is deep, nuanced and riveting. As both sisters acclimate to their new home and finally come to terms with it, they are then faced with the decision of staying in Barbados or returning to Brooklyn, bringing the continual immigrant dilemma to surface: where is home?  (June 30)

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Only The Strong by Jabari Asim

Only The Strong by Jabari Asim

10. Only the Strong by Jabari Asim

This is a tender read about a very outwardly tough character: Lorenzo “Guts” Tolliver, a former professional leg breaker, moved to mend his ways after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. He is rendered thoroughly complex. I haven’t read Asim’s short story collection, but this novel uses the same fictionalized Midwestern City – Gateway City set in the 1970s. The political and sociological shifts of the time this story is set in lend themselves to the complexity of the plot and depth of characters. We want Lorenzo and Charlotte and Ananias to succeed, but also realize that violence and pain is a constant looming threat. That their past isn’t all that far behind. We want Lorenzo to eat his banana pudding.

This is not a novel exactly, but it’s not a novella or a short story collection either. Whatever it is, trust me when I say it’s good. It’s a glorious panorama. It takes on three major characters and they all intersect. They are all set in a fictionalized version of St. Louis during a very tumultuous time of political and social upheaval. In the first story, Lorenzo struggles to escape his past, and ends up working for Ananias Goode, a local criminal. The second story focuses on Goode, who is also seeking to live a life free from violence and his past, but his relationship with a doctor in good social standing in the community complicates things. And the third story is about Charlotte, a particularly colorful character. She has a complicated relationship she is in while in college. What is interesting in the narrative is that each section takes on different emotions or styles or historic periods, sometimes it’s psychological, other times cultural with history being weaved throughout. The language is hypnotic and poetic, with wonderful control throughout. It is very rare to find fiction about very hard characters and renders the writing with tenderness. When you find something like that, you scoop it up! (May 12)

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Filed Under: Book Lists Tagged With: All that followed by Gabriel Urza, An ember in the ashes by Sabaa Tahir, books, Cake Literary, Dhonielle Clayton, diverse novels, Dragonfish by Vu Tran, In the Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib, Make your home among strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet, Mayum and the Sea of Happiness by Jennifer Tseng, Only the Strong by Jabari Asim, people of color, People of Colour, Sona Charaipotra, Summer Reading list, The Starside of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson, The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh, Tiny Pretty Things, We Need Diverse Books

Lemony Snicket Apologizes For Being A Bad Joke Teller

November 21, 2014 by Navdeep Singh Dhillon Leave a Comment

Lemony Snicket Apologizes For Being A Bad Joke Teller

Jacqueline But first, let’s talk about Jacqueline Woodson, one of the authors who received the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

A few years ago, I met Jacqueline Woodson at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where I was taking a glorious week long playwriting workshop with Melinda Lopez. There were only a handful of people of colour present, so we all gravitated towards each other, despite not having much to talk about. The cardinal rule of not talking about race, or even mentioning the word, “white,” in a roomful of white people wasn’t broken. We used the word hello as a symbolic gesture, an acknowledgement of each other’s existence. Me and Jacqueline had a lovely, cursory conversation. Then she read a small section of her work, which I thought was so fantastic I had to immediately read her work and finally understood the draw of Young Adult literature,  Sona and Dhonielle have been banging on about for years.

As soon as Jacqueline Woodson’s, “Brown Girl Dreaming” came in the mail, I spent a very leisurely two weeks reading and re-reading it. The writing is gorgeous and haunting and beautiful, creating a range of emotional effects that forced me to abandon my ingrained way of reading most books. It’s the first book in a very long time that I’ve just read as it’s meant to be read – like a book– without overthinking  craft and theme and structure and all of those other boring things writers like to do to suck the fun out of reading. This is one of those rare birds – it’s poetry wrapped in story. It’s memoir layered in poetry with a narrative. Perhaps it’s a combination of these things. Most likely, it’s none of these things. It’s just a fucking awesome read.

When I heard she won the National Book Award, I was super stoked, not just because it’s well deserved, but because of its implication in the literary world that my son and daughter and niece and nephew are inheriting: a truly diverse definition of normal that goes beyond just black and white and brown.

We Need Diverse Books Because I am Totally Relatable As An Ass-Kicking Princess

We Need Diverse Books Because I am Totally Relatable As An Ass-Kicking Princess

We Need Diverse Books Because I'm Way Too Cute Not To Be The Protagonist.

We Need Diverse Books Because I’m Way Too Cute Not To Be The Protagonist.

Now let’s talk about this motherfucker.

David Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket, made several racist comments during the night he hosted the National Book Award, including one directed at Jacqueline Woodson. His antics are described as variations of what the Washington Post  calls, “an incredibly ill-advised joke,” and Publishers Weekly frames vaguely as “remarks he made about Jacqueline Woodson.” CNN uses single quotes around the word, ‘racist’ because it’s one of those complicated things. But they do offer clarification on why ‘some people’ might be offended:

“Watermelon is historically evoked as a favorite food among black people in racist jokes, and it’s considered by many to be an offensive reference.”

Ahhhhh.

David Handler never used the word, “racist,” because we don’t use those kinds of words in polite conversation. And apparently, neither does the media.

I believe Daniel Handler is being honest when he says he didn’t intend to cause offense. That’s what makes this even more emblematic of a much larger problem. He thought it was funny and assumed other people would find it funny as well. Jacqueline Woodson is allergic to watermelon. And she’s black. HA! It’s perhaps an appropriate dose of reality, a reminder that this is the normal we’re dealing with, and the reason #WeNeedDiverseBooks (WNDB) movement and diversity focused book packaging companies like Cake Literary are so profoundly important.

When I heard Daniel did the right thing by promptly apologising, as well as pledging to donate $10,000 towards the We Need Diverse Books Indigogo campaign (and this morning said he would match any money raised for WNDB today, up to $100,000), I was pleased and willing to let it be one of those idiotic things that happens for the greater good. Then I did something I probably shouldn’t have. I read his apology:

“My job at last night’s National Book Awards was to shine a light on tremendous writers, including Jacqueline Woodson and not to overshadow their achievements with my own ill-conceived attempts at humor. I clearly failed, and I’m sorry.”

It’s a bullshit apology that follows the standard white person apology template. Daniel Handler admits to being wrong, but not for being racist. That burden is on us oversensitive people of colour. Then he donates an acceptable amount of money to a worthy cause, so we’re not supposed to say shit about him anymore. Now we move on. Shockingly (or perhaps not that shockingly), not very many people were talking about this in the first place. Now most people have completely forgiven him and he is free from further criticism. It’s not like he threw a banana at Jacqueline or burned a cross or anything.

Junot Diaz puts my entire rambling thoughts into one succinct rhetorical question: “If Daniel Handler is one of the ‘good guys,’ who the fuck needs bad guys?”

Daniel Handler is one person in a system and it’s the system that makes his comments seem like they’re not that big of a deal and through a glib apology, nothing else needs to happen. Whether people like it or not, a conversation is happening. And Daniel Handler is helping make it a loud one, even it is through guilt.

So go visit the #WeNeedDiverseBooks Indigogo campaign. Through today (Friday, November 21, 2014), Daniel Handler will be matching all contributions made up to $100,000. The money raised will be used to fund grants for bringing diverse YA authors and books to schools and libraries, provide financial support for diverse authors, and most excitingly host the first ever Kidlit Diversity Festival in summer 2016, amongst many other pragmatic goals.

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Filed Under: Lit Life, Musings Tagged With: apologizes, Brown Girl Dreaming, Daniel Handler, diversity, Jacqueline Woodson, Lemony Snicket, National Book Award, National Book Award for Young People's Literature, racism, We Need Diverse Books, WNDB, YA, Young Adult Literature, Young People's Literature

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about I write fiction. I am a Papa. That pretty much sums up what I blog about here. I am a contributing writer for Mom.me and was featured on The Stir's 2013 list of 10 Best Dad Bloggers. I have an MFA in creative writing and teach fiction and literature in NYC. I read. You should too. Read more about me.

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Please don't steal my stuff. All content © 2014 by Navdeep Singh Dhillon exclusively for NavdeepSinghDhillon.com. All Rights Reserved. Republication or redistribution of content in part or whole is strictly prohibited without consent.