This Is Where the Serpent Lives
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST • 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 pages turn themselves. . . . This Is Where the Serpent Lives is a serious book that you’ll be hearing about again when the shortlists for the big literary prizes are announced.” —The New York Times
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.
