The Shadow of the Crescent Moon
A Novel
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3.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Long-listed for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, a lyrical novel set over the course of one morning in a small town in Pakistan
Fatima Bhutto’s stunning debut novel chronicles the lives of five young people trying to live and love in a world on fire. Set during the American invasion of Afghanistan, The Shadow of the Crescent Moon begins and ends one rain-swept Friday morning in Mir Ali, a small town in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas close to the Afghan border.
Three brothers meet for breakfast. Soon after, the eldest, Aman Erum, recently returned from America, hails a taxi to the local mosque. Sikandar, a doctor, drives to the hospital where he works, but must first stop to collect his troubled wife, who has not joined the family that morning. No one knows where Mina goes these days. Sikandar is exhausted by Mina’s instability and by the pall of grief that has enveloped his family. But when, later in the morning, the two are taken hostage by members of the Taliban, Mina will prove to be stronger than anyone could have imagined.
The youngest of the three leaves for town on a motorbike. An idealist, Hayat holds strong to his deathbed promise to their father—to free Mir Ali from oppressors. Seated behind him is a beautiful, fragile girl whose life and thoughts are overwhelmed by the war that has enveloped the place of her birth.
Three hours later their day will end in devastating circumstances.
In this beautifully observed novel, individuals are pushed to make terrible choices. And as the events of this single morning unfold, one woman is at the center of it all.
Praise for The Shadow of the Crescent Moon
"Bhutto writes of an extraordinary place where beauty lives alongside brutality, with superb poise and a kind of defiant lyricism." —The Times (UK)
"[The Shadow of the Crescent Moon] is... a human story, with love as well as ideology - Bhutto blends the two adroitly (and) writes with great poignancy, keeping the emotional pitch high." —Financial Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bhutto's promising debut novel is set in the town of Mir Ali, in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The story begins and ends one tragic Friday morning. Aman Erun, the eldest of three brothers, has returned to his native Mir Ali from America an educated, ambitious businessman. The middle brother, Sikandar, a doctor who lost a son to Taliban violence, has chosen to stay in his war-torn birthplace, accepting the unending conflict while watching his wife, Mina, succumb to madness. The youngest, Hayat, is a quiet member of a Shia separatist group and has become involved with Samarra, the headstrong girlfriend Aman Erun left behind when he went to America. In flashbacks we learn of Aman Erun's escape to America, and of Sikandar's crippling cowardice when he and Mina are confronted by Taliban rebels. In the end, Mina and Samarra prove to be stronger and more courageous than all three brothers put together. Bhutto was 14 when her father was murdered, and she's the young niece of Benazir Bhutto (a Pakistani politician and two-term prime minister who herself was assassinated in 2007). There are large swaths of political rumination: these passages are enlightening but ultimately unnecessary. Though the book is marred by an ending that strains belief, Bhutto's characters and story are compelling and richly drawn.
