Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

Talk about powerful. Peter Carey writes about this book that it left him awestruck, shaken, on the edge of his chair, filled with admiration for the writer’s courage and ambition. And this is an incredibly brave novel. It deals with a family of three young people, British-Pakistani Muslim twins and an older sister, whose father was a jihadist and whose mother has died. When the younger twins turn nineteen, the eldest sister leaves for America to complete here PhD. She befriends Eamon the son of the British Home Secretary. When Eamon returns home he meets the younger sister Aneeka and the story becomes more and more complicated from thereon in. What this writer does is get inside the head of these British Muslims, looks at the motivations behind people becoming jihadists, at the response from moderate Muslims, and at the terrible consequences the decisions people make around these issues have on relationships. The book was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize a couple of years ago. It’s obvious this writer has keenly observed British society and the tensions between Muslims and other groups in society. And the ending for me was totally unexpected.