Plot contrivances whirl in ‘American Dervish’
Cool high school English teachers, take note. If you're looking for a new novel by a young author to spark conversation about faith and family, innocence and adolescence, it's Ayad Akhtar's debut novel American Dervish, a sensitive coming-of-age story narrated by Hayat Shah, a Pakistani-American growing up in Wisconsin during the 1970s and '80s.
This is a book that yearns to bridge cultural divides and build understanding, and Akhtar tells a rich and heartbreaking story about the limits of religion and the hazards of love. But as important and timely as the message might be, and as worthy of applause as his earnest cross-cultural efforts are, this is a plodding, flawed and obvious novel. If you're not that teacher of sophomore English, American Dervish will feel over-plotted and exhaustingly told.
Akhtar chooses a far too conventional and cinematic approach for a complicated story. He opens in 1990; Hayat is a college student who receives word that his mother's beautiful and brilliant friend Mina has just died — not long after Hayat made a confession to Mina on her deathbed about a horrible thing he did to her as a young boy.
And then we move back in time — Mina is just a picture on the Shahs' refrigerator, and young Hayat develops his first crush on this mysterious woman, trapped in Pakistan with an abusive husband. Hayat's mother finally persuades Mina to escape to the United States, and she and her young son move in with the Shahs.
The Shahs' marriage isn't much better — his father, a doctor, carries on a series of affairs, questions the value of religion, and stands aloof from the local Muslim community. Mina, however, radiates faith and urges Hayat to study the Quran. The early incentive is working closely with this beautiful woman, but the teachings then deeply touch a confused boy. When Mina falls in love with one of his father's friends, a Jewish man, jealousy takes hold — Hayat sends a fateful telegram back to Pakistan that he'll regret forever.
If that sounds like a movie trailer, well, with its flashbacks and deathbed revelations, American Dervish will make a fine film. Akhtar is already an acclaimed actor and playwright. But this novel does not go deep enough. Despite the story being told as a flashback, Hayat never reveals a complicated interior life. Pages of wooden dialogue go by without advancing the story. And before a too-neat epilogue, the big confession is revealed in just a half-page filled, as is too much of this novel, with clunky, imprecise language and emotions:
"The telegram. To Hamed. That was me. I sent it."
"What?" Her eyes widened with surprise. There was silence.
Not even the most well-intentioned novel can get away with that many clichés in what should be its most dramatic moment.
American Dervish means so well and has such a big heart. But it tells where it needs to show, and sketches by number where it needs a brighter emotional palette.
High school English teachers will spark some great discussions with this material. The rest of us still have the great Muslim coming-of-age-in-America novel to look forward to.