Customer Reviews

The Memory of Hands

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Finally someone has been brave enough to give a voice to the everyday experiences of muslim american girls and women! And what a voice it is! Memory of Hands is a collection of short stories but all interrelated and written in such poetic and lyrical language that it reads more like a poetic stream of consciousness (for those of us who have experienced everything she writes of) rather than a collection of short stories. This is a fabulous book for those who are muslim american seeking awknowledgement of their own personal experiences and a great read for non-muslims who want to understand the burdens of bicultualism that many muslim americans must deal with.

Fabulous collection of short stories centering on the lives of Muslims in urban America. A poetic journey to understand the phenomenon of cultural and spiritual transplantation from the perspective of American Muslim voices. Through ten stories, these voices emerge from all corners of the Muslim-American experience to articulate struggles, remembrances, fears, and dreams.

Teachers/Librarians: 8th grade to adult. This would be an excellent class read in your language arts program - order enough for a class set! If you were present at one of my teacher workshops in the 1990s you probably heard me read one of these stories aloud to "the class". . . about what a mother would like her daughter's teacher to know?

The Memory of Hands is a collection of 10 short stories, plus a prologue and epilogue. The common themes across the collection center on the struggle of second generation Muslims of Indian background in America to adjust to a radically different cultural milieu than that in which their parents were raised, to make that adjustment in the face of parental, familial, and Indian cultural expectations, and to develop and establish their own identities as Muslim Americans. While the book focuses exclusively on Muslims of Indian background, the major psychological issues highlighted in these short stories are challenges to personal and cultural identity that must be confronted and resolved by all immigrant Muslims living in America.

How does one develop and affirm one's religious identity as a Muslim and one's cultural/national identity as an American without compromising either one? How does one develop one's American identity while sometimes being seen as different or foreign by one's American peers, while being "guided" by parental and familial pressures to remain an Indian, and while being asked to sacrifice personal freedom and goals on the altar of Indian definitions of marital, vocational, and professional success?

In addressing the above issues with rare sensitivity and insight, Reshma Baig has done a masterful job in allowing the reader to peer inside the very soul of her characters. As an example, consider the case presented in chapters three and four of a young girl who was born in India who develops what appears to be a variety of stress-related psychosomatic complaints as she struggles to adjust to life in a first grade classroom in a large New York City school. Cheer for the young woman of Indian background who defies the matrimonial expectations of her parents to find a physician of Indian or Pakistani background to be her husband; instead she meets her lifelong companion in a sensitive and creative teacher who is an American convert to Islam (chapter six). Admire the young woman who knows enough about her faith of Islam to refuse to follow blindly the teachings of one of the charismatic "sheikhs" that attempt to set themselves up as a third foundational element of Islam, alongside the Qur'an and the actual teachings of Prophet Muhammad (chapter seven). Pray for the young man to find and free himself before he commits himself to a path of slavery to a medical profession that he does not really want, merely in order to meet parental expectations (chapter eight). Cringe in gut-wrenching agony at the birth and infanticide of a baby girl in a sleazy motel; a newborn life destroyed in order to maintain the career paths and recreational dreams of her single parents (chapter nine).

These are powerful stories that are beautifully written by a true wordsmith. The stories grab the reader by the heart and then compel the reader to race breathlessly from page to page, pausing only occasionally to stop and admire a phrase or a sentence of pure linguistic triumph. The book is nothing short of being a masterpiece of fiction, one that is heavily grounded in the realities of life for immigrant Muslims of Indian background who are struggling to find their place in American society.