This Is Where the Serpent Lives
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A stunning new work from universally acclaimed Daniyal Mueenuddin, whose debut short story collection won the Story Prize and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE. NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026: Town & Country, Bustle, AARP, Kirkus
Moving from Pakistan’s dazzling chaotic cities to its lawless feudal countryside, This Is Where the Serpent Lives powerfully evokes contemporary feudal Pakistan, following the destinies of a dozen unforgettable characters whose lives are linked through violence and tragedy, triumph, and love. Orphaned as a little boy and fending for himself in the city streets, Yazid rises to a place of responsibility and respect in the Lahore household of Colonel Atar, a powerful industrialist and politician, only to find that position threatened by conflicting loyalties and misplaced trust. Born on Colonel Atar’s country estate to a poor gardener, Saqib is entrusted with the management of a pioneering business, but he overreaches and finds himself an outlaw, confronting the violence of the corrupt Punjab Police. The colonel’s son competes with his cherished brother for the love of a woman and discovers that her choice colors his life with unexpected darkness as well as light.
In matters of power and money and the heart, Mueenuddin’s characters struggle to choose between paths that are moral and just and more worldly choices that allow them to survive in the systems of caste, capital, and social power that so tightly grip their culture. Intimate and epic, elegiac and profoundly moving, This Is Where the Serpent Lives is a tour de force destined to become a classic of contemporary literature.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This sweeping, character-driven epic traces how power and loyalty shape everyday lives across modern Pakistan. The story follows a web of interconnected characters whose paths cross through work, family, and obligation, moving between bustling cities and rural estates. From Yazid, who rises from an unstable childhood into a position of trust within a powerful household, to Saqib, whose ambition carries him beyond the limits of the system he serves, each storyline shows how personal choices are narrowed by entrenched hierarchies. Author Daniyal Mueenuddin excels at telling this big social story through small, intimate moments. Each character feels caught between conscience and self-preservation, often aware of the true cost of their decisions even as they make them. Rich, thoughtful, and quietly devastating, This Is Where the Serpent Lives is an absorbing read that rewards close attention.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mueenuddin's lavish sophomore effort (after the 2009 collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders) spans six decades and traces the lives of a wealthy Pakistani clan and those who work for them. Organized into four interconnected parts, it begins with the orphaned Bayasid, a tea boy in the Rawalpindi bazaar in 1955. Clever and loyal, Bayasid grows infatuated with his higher-class friend's sister, Yasmin, until Yasmin's housemaid banishes him from their home. Bayasid then becomes a smuggler, and years later, in an ironic twist, he violently defends Yasmin's honor before ending up in Lahore as a colonel's driver. The story then shifts to the colonel's nephew Rustom, who returns from his American education in 1988 to take over his family's farm, only to be outwitted by the rules and traditions of rural Pakistan. Clearly out of his league, he appeals for help to his cousin Hisham, who, in the novel's third section, leaves with his brother Nessim to study at Dartmouth College, where they clash over the beautiful Shahnaz, who eventually marries Hisham and becomes the indulgent but astute memsahib of the estate, where the couple live a life of parties and outrageous privilege. The final heartbreaking section follows Saquib, the gardener's son, whose ambitions drive the narrative toward a terrifying turn of events. The story threads cohere into a profound and revelatory portrait of Pakistan's class divisions. Propulsive and peopled with unforgettable characters, this is a masterpiece.
