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Hiding in Plain Sight
A bold new novel that “augments a body of work worthy of a Nobel Prize” (Kirkus Reviews), from the internationally acclaimed author of Crossbones
Nuruddin Farah—“the most important African novelist to emerge in the past twenty-five years” (The New York Review of Books)—returns with a provocative, unforgettable tale about family, freedom, and loyalty. A departure in theme and setting, Hiding in Plain Sight is a profound exploration of the tensions between liberty and obligation, the ways in which gender and sexual orientation define us, and the unintended consequences of the secrets we keep.
When Bella, a fashion photographer living in Rome, learns of her beloved half-brother’s murder, she travels to Nairobi to care for her niece and nephew. But when their mother resurfaces, reasserting her maternal rights and bringing with her a gale of chaos and confusion that mirrors the deepening political instability in the region, Bella must decide how far she will go to obey the call of sisterly responsibility.
Nuruddin Farah—“the most important African novelist to emerge in the past twenty-five years” (The New York Review of Books)—returns with a provocative, unforgettable tale about family, freedom, and loyalty. A departure in theme and setting, Hiding in Plain Sight is a profound exploration of the tensions between liberty and obligation, the ways in which gender and sexual orientation define us, and the unintended consequences of the secrets we keep.
When Bella, a fashion photographer living in Rome, learns of her beloved half-brother’s murder, she travels to Nairobi to care for her niece and nephew. But when their mother resurfaces, reasserting her maternal rights and bringing with her a gale of chaos and confusion that mirrors the deepening political instability in the region, Bella must decide how far she will go to obey the call of sisterly responsibility.
342 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2014
56 people are currently reading
1441 people want to read
About the author
Nuruddin Farah
31 books332 followersNuruddin Farah (Somali: Nuuradiin Faarax, Arabic: نور الدين فرح) is a prominent Somali novelist. Farah has garnered acclaim as one of the greatest contemporary writers in the world, his prose having earned him accolades including the Premio Cavour in Italy, the Kurt Tucholsky Prize in Sweden, the Lettre Ulysses Award in Berlin, and in 1998, the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In the same year, the French edition of his novel Gifts won the St Malo Literature Festival's prize. In addition, Farah is a perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews
November 13, 2014
Nuruddin Farah didn’t win the Nobel Prize in literature last month as was predicted — or at least hoped — in some quarters, but he remains a perennial contender. The celebrated Somali writer, who now teaches at Bard College in New York, has published a dozen novels, many of them dealing with questions of African identity that seem increasingly relevant to a world finally waking up to the continent’s true potential for disruption or success. In a year striking for its bounty of Africa-related novels, his new book, “Hiding in Plain Sight,” promises a rich exploration of political and social crises that American readers could be expected to savor.
The opening scene practically blows off the front cover of the novel. A Somali man, a single father named Aar who works for the United Nations in Mogadishu, receives a piece of paper that contains only one word: “DETH!” Aar is tempted to pretend that some poor speller wants relief from “debt,” but he knows how toxic the political climate is for people like him. He’s “struck with a sudden nausea; in fact, he is so panic-stricken that he thinks his knees may give way, forcing him to collapse to the floor.” By the time he composes himself and makes plans to flee, it’s too late: A jihadist group destroys the U.N. building, killing him and more than 30 others.
As a hook, this sweaty-palmed scene is terrifically exciting. As an indication of the tale that follows, it’s entirely misleading.
The novel proper is not actually a thriller at all. It’s a sensitive story about living in the shadow of grief, learning to forgive and trying to answer the question, “What does it mean to be Somali in this day and age?” The central character of “Hiding in Plain Sight” is Aar’s younger sister, Bella, a world-renowned fashion photographer. Summoned home by her brother’s murder, Bella must tearfully piece together the shards of his compartmentalized existence. (In a brutal example of life imitating art, Farah’s own sister was killed in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan this year, after he had finished a draft of this novel.)
Bella’s grieving is subsumed by the immediate needs of Aar’s children — her young niece and nephew living in Nairobi. What role will she now play in their lives? Is she willing to abandon her jet-setting career to care for these adolescents by herself? Those questions are complicated by the sudden arrival of the children’s long-absent mother, an exceedingly vain and manipulative lesbian named Valerie who “has a habit of creating confusion.”
This plot carries a number of sharp-edged themes and conflicts — including international terrorism, African prejudices against homosexuals, the rights of estranged parents and the responsibilities of the African diaspora. Farah knows this geographical, social and political territory well, and he’s a helpful, often didactic guide. All of these vital subjects, though, are muffled by his book’s exceedingly polite treatment of a shaken family learning to get along. “Hiding in Plain Sight” could prove an invaluable resource as, say, a model on how to handle a potentially contentious Thanksgiving weekend, but as an engaging novel, it’s less successful.
Part of this stems from the blandness of its prose. Worn phrases pock these pages: Bella is “drop-dead gorgeous,” and she dreams of being “dressed to the nines”; Valerie’s lover is “to die for.” More enervating is the plot’s allergy to any sustained tension. Valerie may behave badly and she may want to steal the children, but she really threatens this plucky group’s ability to work together. Bella and her niece and nephew engage in conversations that seem lifted from a pamphlet titled “Raising Responsible and Liberal-Minded African Teens.”
“People everywhere should be in a position to make their God-given choice and to be with those they choose to be with,” Bella tells these fantastically well-behaved adolescents. “We Africans lag behind the rest of the world, and we waste valuable energy putting our noses in people’s private lives.”
On cue, her nephew lobs over An Expansive Question: “Did living in Europe change your views, or are those views you held before you left Africa?”
“I’ve always appreciated differences,” Bella says. “My mother had a lot to do with that. She appreciated the things that set people apart.”
Then her niece asks, “Why are most of us so wrong about this?”
“We are ill informed about the world, ill educated, intolerant of the views of others when they do not agree with ours,” Bella says. “We are undemocratic, just like our governments. But sex is a personal matter that our societies and governments have no business with.”
Bella can tell that “the children are proud of her strong statement.”
“Hiding in Plain Sight” offers a similarly enriching dialogue on female circumcision. Among these characters, disagreement always evolves quickly into understanding and appreciation.
In one typical encounter, after reprimanding her nephew for behaving rudely, the young man asks Bella, “Can I rely on you to guide me and set me right when I go wrong?”
Where do such earnest angels live?
Not in the pages of engaging fiction.
This review was first published in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
The opening scene practically blows off the front cover of the novel. A Somali man, a single father named Aar who works for the United Nations in Mogadishu, receives a piece of paper that contains only one word: “DETH!” Aar is tempted to pretend that some poor speller wants relief from “debt,” but he knows how toxic the political climate is for people like him. He’s “struck with a sudden nausea; in fact, he is so panic-stricken that he thinks his knees may give way, forcing him to collapse to the floor.” By the time he composes himself and makes plans to flee, it’s too late: A jihadist group destroys the U.N. building, killing him and more than 30 others.
As a hook, this sweaty-palmed scene is terrifically exciting. As an indication of the tale that follows, it’s entirely misleading.
The novel proper is not actually a thriller at all. It’s a sensitive story about living in the shadow of grief, learning to forgive and trying to answer the question, “What does it mean to be Somali in this day and age?” The central character of “Hiding in Plain Sight” is Aar’s younger sister, Bella, a world-renowned fashion photographer. Summoned home by her brother’s murder, Bella must tearfully piece together the shards of his compartmentalized existence. (In a brutal example of life imitating art, Farah’s own sister was killed in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan this year, after he had finished a draft of this novel.)
Bella’s grieving is subsumed by the immediate needs of Aar’s children — her young niece and nephew living in Nairobi. What role will she now play in their lives? Is she willing to abandon her jet-setting career to care for these adolescents by herself? Those questions are complicated by the sudden arrival of the children’s long-absent mother, an exceedingly vain and manipulative lesbian named Valerie who “has a habit of creating confusion.”
This plot carries a number of sharp-edged themes and conflicts — including international terrorism, African prejudices against homosexuals, the rights of estranged parents and the responsibilities of the African diaspora. Farah knows this geographical, social and political territory well, and he’s a helpful, often didactic guide. All of these vital subjects, though, are muffled by his book’s exceedingly polite treatment of a shaken family learning to get along. “Hiding in Plain Sight” could prove an invaluable resource as, say, a model on how to handle a potentially contentious Thanksgiving weekend, but as an engaging novel, it’s less successful.
Part of this stems from the blandness of its prose. Worn phrases pock these pages: Bella is “drop-dead gorgeous,” and she dreams of being “dressed to the nines”; Valerie’s lover is “to die for.” More enervating is the plot’s allergy to any sustained tension. Valerie may behave badly and she may want to steal the children, but she really threatens this plucky group’s ability to work together. Bella and her niece and nephew engage in conversations that seem lifted from a pamphlet titled “Raising Responsible and Liberal-Minded African Teens.”
“People everywhere should be in a position to make their God-given choice and to be with those they choose to be with,” Bella tells these fantastically well-behaved adolescents. “We Africans lag behind the rest of the world, and we waste valuable energy putting our noses in people’s private lives.”
On cue, her nephew lobs over An Expansive Question: “Did living in Europe change your views, or are those views you held before you left Africa?”
“I’ve always appreciated differences,” Bella says. “My mother had a lot to do with that. She appreciated the things that set people apart.”
Then her niece asks, “Why are most of us so wrong about this?”
“We are ill informed about the world, ill educated, intolerant of the views of others when they do not agree with ours,” Bella says. “We are undemocratic, just like our governments. But sex is a personal matter that our societies and governments have no business with.”
Bella can tell that “the children are proud of her strong statement.”
“Hiding in Plain Sight” offers a similarly enriching dialogue on female circumcision. Among these characters, disagreement always evolves quickly into understanding and appreciation.
In one typical encounter, after reprimanding her nephew for behaving rudely, the young man asks Bella, “Can I rely on you to guide me and set me right when I go wrong?”
Where do such earnest angels live?
Not in the pages of engaging fiction.
This review was first published in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
November 24, 2014
When Aar is killed by a suicide bomber, or maybe a directed hit, his sister Bella, a renowned photographer returns to Kenya to care for her beloved brother's children. Valerie the children's mother had left War for another woman years before.
My reactions to this novel are very mixed. I enjoyed all the discussions on photography, as many of the characters are displaced Somaliland I liked reading about how they are judged in the country they fled to after the Civil War in Somalia. They also discuss the different food influences in their cuisines. When the children's mother reappears with her female partner, this provides the tension in the story as she originally attempts to get close to her children with the hope that they will choose to live with her and her partner.
What I had trouble with was the language, which felt998 stilted at times and the distance I felt from the characters. Also felt the ending was very abrupt and anti-climatic. So while I found the main story interesting enough to keep reading, I just expected more. So I would recommend this to readers who want to read about the Somalia refugee experience in Kenya and a family story that was somewhat different.
ARC from publisher.
My reactions to this novel are very mixed. I enjoyed all the discussions on photography, as many of the characters are displaced Somaliland I liked reading about how they are judged in the country they fled to after the Civil War in Somalia. They also discuss the different food influences in their cuisines. When the children's mother reappears with her female partner, this provides the tension in the story as she originally attempts to get close to her children with the hope that they will choose to live with her and her partner.
What I had trouble with was the language, which felt998 stilted at times and the distance I felt from the characters. Also felt the ending was very abrupt and anti-climatic. So while I found the main story interesting enough to keep reading, I just expected more. So I would recommend this to readers who want to read about the Somalia refugee experience in Kenya and a family story that was somewhat different.
ARC from publisher.
December 14, 2018
Not sure how this 2014 book arrived in my bookcase; It is much more current than most of the titles I read. I imagine I picked it up either at a library sale or at Dollar Tree during one of my trips to visit Mom. Now that I am in Arizona permanently, I have a goal of tidying and organizing all the books in my library, and I plan to give some away, too! (Really really.) So during my first hectic month in house, I have been picking those unread titles such as this one, and renewing my friendship with our local library as well.
But anyway, on to the book!
I made few notes, but an early one said 'not sure where this is going'. I wondered if Bella would get to her murdered brother's children in time to keep them from being kidnapped or also slain or some other such horror. And when the children's mom shows up after years of being awol, I expected many more fireworks between her and Bella than actually appeared.
It seemed like from page to page I was waiting for Something Big And Awful to happen and it never
did. While on one hand it was a relief in a way to know the characters would not have some bizarre super dramas to deal with, on the other hand the lack of that expected drama made the book fizzle out for me by the end. My final note about it says 'the ending seemed odd and disappointing'.
I did get another by the same author at the library to see what else he has done, and if I might like his other works better, but that is another story.
But anyway, on to the book!
I made few notes, but an early one said 'not sure where this is going'. I wondered if Bella would get to her murdered brother's children in time to keep them from being kidnapped or also slain or some other such horror. And when the children's mom shows up after years of being awol, I expected many more fireworks between her and Bella than actually appeared.
It seemed like from page to page I was waiting for Something Big And Awful to happen and it never
did. While on one hand it was a relief in a way to know the characters would not have some bizarre super dramas to deal with, on the other hand the lack of that expected drama made the book fizzle out for me by the end. My final note about it says 'the ending seemed odd and disappointing'.
I did get another by the same author at the library to see what else he has done, and if I might like his other works better, but that is another story.
July 28, 2024
Ar fi putut fi o carte valoroasă, având în vedere că abordează multe subiecte și teme grave, dar personajele și povestea sunt atââât de plictisitoare!
,,Cine își povestește propriile secrete nu are cum să le păstreze pe ale altora."
,,Bărbatul din copil se trage."
,,Când știi cine ești, devii mai tolerant cu preferințele altora."
,,Pe noi e greu să ne cuprindă lumea."
,,poți să fii crescut așa cum trebuie de oricine, atâta vreme cât te iubește, are grijă de tine și ar face orice pe lumea asta ca să fii un copil fericit."
,,Fiecare generație găsește propriul ei răspuns la întrebările vieții."
,,Cine își povestește propriile secrete nu are cum să le păstreze pe ale altora."
,,Bărbatul din copil se trage."
,,Când știi cine ești, devii mai tolerant cu preferințele altora."
,,Pe noi e greu să ne cuprindă lumea."
,,poți să fii crescut așa cum trebuie de oricine, atâta vreme cât te iubește, are grijă de tine și ar face orice pe lumea asta ca să fii un copil fericit."
,,Fiecare generație găsește propriul ei răspuns la întrebările vieții."
March 27, 2015
What does it mean to be a Somali in this day and age…particularly a Somali in Kenya? There may be no better author to answer that question than Somali-born Naruddin Farah, who provides an insight glimpse of a Somali photographer who must decide between freedom and family.
Bella is a renowned photographer who has never had to curb her private love life and her professional ambitions. But when her the man she loves most of all – her half-brother Aars, a U.N. official – is killed in a violent terrorist attack, she departs immediately to Nairobi to take on the responsibilities of her teenage niece and nephew. That journey places her at odds with the children’s birth mother, Valerie, who has deserted them many years ago for a freer life with her gay partner, Padmini. All begin to interact with each other as prescribed by who they are: their clan identity, their gender preferences, and, in the case of all the adults, their formerly nomadic lifestyles.
There are no major fireworks in this novel and the terrorist act is prologue to the wider backdrop of family conflict in an unsettled age. There is a lot to be learned about the modern day Somali woman: the bigotry against the Somali by the Kenyans, the treatment of gay women, the myths that pass as truth in defining those we don’t really know. Gently and compassionately, Farah creates a symphony of characters – ones that are rarely addressed in literature and not understood by the world in general – and provides insights into what motivates and drives them and how their interactions cannot be readily defined by our own expectations.
If I have any quibble with the novel, it’s this: Nuruddin Farah sometimes excercises his authorial right to lead the reader. Discussions among the characters about topics such as female circumcision, for example, seem to be coming more from the author’s need to educate than from the characters’ true dialogue.
That being said, this is a fascinating – even unforgettable – novel that fills an important niche.
Bella is a renowned photographer who has never had to curb her private love life and her professional ambitions. But when her the man she loves most of all – her half-brother Aars, a U.N. official – is killed in a violent terrorist attack, she departs immediately to Nairobi to take on the responsibilities of her teenage niece and nephew. That journey places her at odds with the children’s birth mother, Valerie, who has deserted them many years ago for a freer life with her gay partner, Padmini. All begin to interact with each other as prescribed by who they are: their clan identity, their gender preferences, and, in the case of all the adults, their formerly nomadic lifestyles.
There are no major fireworks in this novel and the terrorist act is prologue to the wider backdrop of family conflict in an unsettled age. There is a lot to be learned about the modern day Somali woman: the bigotry against the Somali by the Kenyans, the treatment of gay women, the myths that pass as truth in defining those we don’t really know. Gently and compassionately, Farah creates a symphony of characters – ones that are rarely addressed in literature and not understood by the world in general – and provides insights into what motivates and drives them and how their interactions cannot be readily defined by our own expectations.
If I have any quibble with the novel, it’s this: Nuruddin Farah sometimes excercises his authorial right to lead the reader. Discussions among the characters about topics such as female circumcision, for example, seem to be coming more from the author’s need to educate than from the characters’ true dialogue.
That being said, this is a fascinating – even unforgettable – novel that fills an important niche.
October 31, 2014
The tension between geopolitical landscapes and the promise of a universal domestic drama piqued my interest in reading this book. The premise is intriguing: a beautiful, statuesque photographer, Bella, daughter of a Somali mother and Italian father, is informed that her half-brother, Aar, (on mother's side) has been killed by terrorists during his work with the UN. Aar lived in Nairobi with his teenaged daughter and son; the children's mother, Valerie, abandoned them years ago to pursue a relationship with another woman. Now she is back in the picture with a lawyer, ready to take up a fight for her children. Bella leaves Rome, where she has been living for many years, to move to Kenya and take care of the children in Nairobi (per Aar's wishes) and deal with Valerie. Growing up, she was half in love with Aar herself.
There's a flat, stilted style to Farah's narrative that removed any feeling of immediacy. It's a mix of declarative sentences and static details, which is occasionally heavy-handed. There's the sense that passages are being filtered through the author's socio-political lens before he shares it with the reader. I'm not quite sure if Farah thought that we wouldn't grasp enough of the nuances, or whether he wasn't able to step aside and let us come to our own conclusions. Too often, he justified a character's action or thought, which dispatched me out of the story and into the author's agenda. Farah also seemed to be edifying his readers about Somali customs and perceptions toward homosexuality, genital mutilation, and female assertion, but instead of it coming organically from the story, it had the touch of pulpit sermonizing.
As for the characters, they never truly came alive for me. The author had a ripe opportunity to illustrate inner conflict in Bella, who abruptly dropped her carefree, single lifestyle in Italy to mother two teens in Nairobi. And, not a look back! It isn't just her altruism that is hard to swallow, but her too-immediate adjustment. She takes on the nurturing, mothering role so seamlessly that it is hard to believe that she was living in a fast-paced, narcissistic world of fame, money, and beautiful people. Bella is single, with several lovers and a lucrative career, but has zero qualms about her new obligation. As the reader, I did not see Bella struggling to adapt. She was also the ultimate diplomat in every situation. The few times that she was blunt to people, they were portrayed to deserve it.
Aar is just the vehicle for the story, and possessed one-dimensional attributes. The victim of terrorism, his portrait was sympathetic but superficial. Like Bella, he was morally and ethically above reproach. Valerie, the ex- and the putative villain, left little to the imagination. What is even more irritating is that the potentially complicated situation gets wrapped up too conveniently in a bow. Valerie's lover, ethnically Indian but Ugandan-born Padmini, is largely a straw for the author's facile handling of Valerie.
The most complex characters were the children-- Salif, the eldest child, and his sister, Dahaba. Farah showed subtle insight into the issues of teenagers facing tragedy. Their mixed feelings toward their mother were often realistic, although Farah didn't mine it sufficiently. Their cycling emotions, although not adequately explored, were realistic.
It took me a few weeks to complete this novel, as it didn't compel me to keep turning the pages. Besides the stilted style, there were a lot of unnecessary details, such as mundane cooking and other domestic chores, that put the brakes on the story. Moreover, Farah periodically put too repetitive a point on things. For example, it was made clear early on that Aar and his children respected the Muslim culture but were not strict with custom; the children ate bacon, for one thing. But there was too much zeroing in on cooking bacon. It appeared that the author wanted to keep reminding us, in case we forgot!
The story, which took up 339 pages, could have been shaved down to a 90-page novella. If you eliminated the excess minutiae, the result would have had more momentum, if not more intrigue. As it was, there really wasn't a lot of scope in this story of a disrupted, blended family.
There's a flat, stilted style to Farah's narrative that removed any feeling of immediacy. It's a mix of declarative sentences and static details, which is occasionally heavy-handed. There's the sense that passages are being filtered through the author's socio-political lens before he shares it with the reader. I'm not quite sure if Farah thought that we wouldn't grasp enough of the nuances, or whether he wasn't able to step aside and let us come to our own conclusions. Too often, he justified a character's action or thought, which dispatched me out of the story and into the author's agenda. Farah also seemed to be edifying his readers about Somali customs and perceptions toward homosexuality, genital mutilation, and female assertion, but instead of it coming organically from the story, it had the touch of pulpit sermonizing.
As for the characters, they never truly came alive for me. The author had a ripe opportunity to illustrate inner conflict in Bella, who abruptly dropped her carefree, single lifestyle in Italy to mother two teens in Nairobi. And, not a look back! It isn't just her altruism that is hard to swallow, but her too-immediate adjustment. She takes on the nurturing, mothering role so seamlessly that it is hard to believe that she was living in a fast-paced, narcissistic world of fame, money, and beautiful people. Bella is single, with several lovers and a lucrative career, but has zero qualms about her new obligation. As the reader, I did not see Bella struggling to adapt. She was also the ultimate diplomat in every situation. The few times that she was blunt to people, they were portrayed to deserve it.
Aar is just the vehicle for the story, and possessed one-dimensional attributes. The victim of terrorism, his portrait was sympathetic but superficial. Like Bella, he was morally and ethically above reproach. Valerie, the ex- and the putative villain, left little to the imagination. What is even more irritating is that the potentially complicated situation gets wrapped up too conveniently in a bow. Valerie's lover, ethnically Indian but Ugandan-born Padmini, is largely a straw for the author's facile handling of Valerie.
The most complex characters were the children-- Salif, the eldest child, and his sister, Dahaba. Farah showed subtle insight into the issues of teenagers facing tragedy. Their mixed feelings toward their mother were often realistic, although Farah didn't mine it sufficiently. Their cycling emotions, although not adequately explored, were realistic.
It took me a few weeks to complete this novel, as it didn't compel me to keep turning the pages. Besides the stilted style, there were a lot of unnecessary details, such as mundane cooking and other domestic chores, that put the brakes on the story. Moreover, Farah periodically put too repetitive a point on things. For example, it was made clear early on that Aar and his children respected the Muslim culture but were not strict with custom; the children ate bacon, for one thing. But there was too much zeroing in on cooking bacon. It appeared that the author wanted to keep reminding us, in case we forgot!
The story, which took up 339 pages, could have been shaved down to a 90-page novella. If you eliminated the excess minutiae, the result would have had more momentum, if not more intrigue. As it was, there really wasn't a lot of scope in this story of a disrupted, blended family.
March 22, 2018
There were two key reasons why I wanted - no needed - to read this book. First, the book is set mainly in my hometown - Nairobi. Second, I hoped I would learn more about the Somali community which I feel is deeply misunderstood. The fact that it is written by Nuruddin Farah was an added bonus.
The start of the book was gripping, unfortunately that was the only part that I enjoyed. There was too much author commentary and it didn't help that the author got some of the things about my hometown wrong. Yes, yes, it's a work of fiction but if you are going to write about London, you wouldn't include the Statue of Liberty.
All in all, I finished the book because I am a completer finisher like that.
The start of the book was gripping, unfortunately that was the only part that I enjoyed. There was too much author commentary and it didn't help that the author got some of the things about my hometown wrong. Yes, yes, it's a work of fiction but if you are going to write about London, you wouldn't include the Statue of Liberty.
All in all, I finished the book because I am a completer finisher like that.
October 16, 2014
I won this book through Goodreads first-reads. When Aar dies in a terrorist attack, his sister Bella takes charge of his children. Their mother left them years before. Being a first time mother was a learning experience for Bella. She does it with so much love and wisdom. She showed a great deal of tackfulness too. The author made the characters very real. The story had a nice flow to it. It was a very refreshing book to read.
July 10, 2015
I'm sorry I wasted time on this book. It got a good review in the Washington Post, so I requested it from the library. Dull, dull, dull. Boring characters with a narrative riddled with cliches. "Cooing sweet nothings." "Went ballistic." "Opened a can of worms." "Snowball's chance in hell." Farah has been nominated for a Noble Prize in Literature? He must have written a better book than this one. I felt that he padded this book to make it 300-plus pages long. Descriptions of people cooking breakfast--bacon and eggs and toast. Eggs with runny yolks, eggs with firm yolks. Bleh. Who cares? I wish I'd chosen one of Farah's other books to introduce myself to him.
November 26, 2014
Review also found at http://kristineandterri.blogspot.ca/2...
I won an uncorrected copy of this book in a giveaway on Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.
I really do not know what to say about this story. I was left feeling rather disappointed at the end. I just don't know if I can elaborate on why.
What was set up to be a compelling storyline ended up falling a little flat for me. The concept of a sister travelling back to Africa to care for her deceased brothers children and dealing with the biological mother entering back in to the equation held so much potential. I couldn't wait to find out what would happen. The problem is I have turned over the last page and I am still waiting. Nothing really happened in this story.
Add to it that I was rather annoyed with almost every character. The children were either bratty or too mature for their age. Bella was too formal to the point that she didn't seem realistic. Valerie was a nightmare however that was to be expected.
I don't know, I am feeling a little frustrated after the investment of my time on this book. What had really good bones just failed to develop in to a compelling story for me.
I won an uncorrected copy of this book in a giveaway on Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.
I really do not know what to say about this story. I was left feeling rather disappointed at the end. I just don't know if I can elaborate on why.
What was set up to be a compelling storyline ended up falling a little flat for me. The concept of a sister travelling back to Africa to care for her deceased brothers children and dealing with the biological mother entering back in to the equation held so much potential. I couldn't wait to find out what would happen. The problem is I have turned over the last page and I am still waiting. Nothing really happened in this story.
Add to it that I was rather annoyed with almost every character. The children were either bratty or too mature for their age. Bella was too formal to the point that she didn't seem realistic. Valerie was a nightmare however that was to be expected.
I don't know, I am feeling a little frustrated after the investment of my time on this book. What had really good bones just failed to develop in to a compelling story for me.
August 21, 2015
After jumping out of the gate in the prologue, the book sputters along as the reader slowly figures out nothing else is going to happen. The dialogue is overwrought and nothing resonates. There are drawn out forays into photography and African geography that add nothing. The chapters turn into documentary-style accounts of everyday life in a family with events that could be interesting, but aren't.
I wouldn't have finished the book except that I kept thinking there had to be more. Something more had to happen. But let me assure you, lest you think the same. There isn't any more than the prologue.
I wouldn't have finished the book except that I kept thinking there had to be more. Something more had to happen. But let me assure you, lest you think the same. There isn't any more than the prologue.
December 27, 2014
Another Overdrive mistake. I would have given up after the first twenty pages, but I was trapped on an airplane.
September 2, 2017
När jag såg den här boken i mitt flöde så tyckte jag att den lät väldigt intressant. En av anledningarna var, givetvis, att den är från Afrika. Förmodligen läste jag lite slarvigt vad den skulle handla om, för detta var inte alls den bok jag hade förväntat mig. Men det gjorde inte så mycket. Läs mer på min blogg
January 25, 2018
A disappointing read. A great first chapter then pages of trivial events as the family of Aar comes to grips with his death in a Somalian terrorist attack. To me this became a who-cares novel.
November 29, 2019
Not what I expected. Nothing seems possible, the dialogues are kind of wooden and unreal and the whole tone of the book is patronising. I am disappointed, I have to admit.
April 14, 2019
I didn't actually read this book.
We picked it for book club, general consensus was it was difficult to read, not a good story.
I don't want further rocommendations from Goodreads based on Hiding In Plain Sight being in my book list.
We picked it for book club, general consensus was it was difficult to read, not a good story.
I don't want further rocommendations from Goodreads based on Hiding In Plain Sight being in my book list.
May 29, 2016
Family Dynamics
This is a strange book in many ways. It starts with the terrorist bombing of UN offices in Somalia, but it does not concern itself with politics or terrorism thereafter, wrapping itself instead in family domesticities. It is written by a male author, yet it contains no significant male characters and reads at times almost as a feminist tract. Set mostly among Somali expatriates in Kenya, it contains a lot of didactic information about national attitudes, yet the leading characters who might otherwise embody these attitudes are painted as such extraordinary individuals that they cannot be considered as typical of any nationality at all.
Such is the protagonist, Bella. Nominally Somali by birth, she is in fact the daughter of a visiting Italian jurist, and has spent most of her adult life based in Rome, though traveling around the world in her profession as photographer. Well off, and speaking many languages, she has not married, but boasts three regular lovers in three continents, chosen respectively for looks, intelligence, and virility. Not impossible, no, but one wonders why the author could not have built his novel around a woman with a more normal lifestyle, rather than a jet-setter from Hollywood romance. Bella's brother Aar is extraordinary too, portrayed more or less as a secular saint. Leaving Somalia at an early age, he worked on humanitarian causes for various NGOs before being killed in the first pages of the novel. His death causes Bella to fly back to Nairobi to look after his children, Salif and Dahaba, both young teens.
It is not a bad premise, although I felt that the gears never quite meshed. The action of the novel lasts a matter of weeks at most, which is simply not enough to address traumas of this sort. Much of the action is small-scale, such as deciding what to make for breakfast or where to go for carry-out. Bella seems to have the knack of doing the right things, such as consoling Dahaba and shaming Salif out of his belligerence, but it doesn't ring quite true. After one such confrontation, Salif acknowledges, "To be sure, I was out of order earlier. Can I rely on you to guide me and set me right when I go wrong?" This from a boy of 15? It is hard to imagine. And there is nothing in Bella's life, other than her love for her late brother, to suggest she would have such parenting skills at all. Besides, she would have huge adjustments of her own to face, giving up her international lifestyle and setting up as a single houseparent; nowhere does the character address these with anything like the seriousness they deserve.
The novel's title occurs only once in the book itself, in reference to closeted lesbians. The major plot-point in this almost-plotless book is the arrival of the children's mother, Valerie, who walked out on both husband and children ten years before to become a lesbian. To add to the rainbow cast, Valerie is English; her lover, Padmini, is a beautiful Indian, born in Uganda. Valerie arrives in Nairobi about a quarter-way into the book, claiming custody of the children. I found it hard to follow the logic of the action from that point on, partly because Bella is torn between treating Valerie politely as a grieving sister-in-law and opposing her as a rival, partly because the actual events are trivial, and partly because Valerie is presented as alcoholic, desperate, and a little insane.
Farah was born in Somalia himself, and he throws in many asides about the Somali character—even though none of the major surviving figures in his novel is pure-bred African. He looks at attitudes to homosexuality (both male and female) in his own country, Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. He has good things to say about the status of women, and such topics as female circumcision. But none of this is addressed through the story, rather by little instructional interludes or unlikely spurts of informative dialogue. He also has a way of neutralizing the most interesting things about his characters by telling them in long stretches of dry back-story soon after we meet them. To me, the balance between showing and telling was just wrong, so I never felt that intrinsic connection between character, place, and history which is the essential of a good novel.
This is a strange book in many ways. It starts with the terrorist bombing of UN offices in Somalia, but it does not concern itself with politics or terrorism thereafter, wrapping itself instead in family domesticities. It is written by a male author, yet it contains no significant male characters and reads at times almost as a feminist tract. Set mostly among Somali expatriates in Kenya, it contains a lot of didactic information about national attitudes, yet the leading characters who might otherwise embody these attitudes are painted as such extraordinary individuals that they cannot be considered as typical of any nationality at all.
Such is the protagonist, Bella. Nominally Somali by birth, she is in fact the daughter of a visiting Italian jurist, and has spent most of her adult life based in Rome, though traveling around the world in her profession as photographer. Well off, and speaking many languages, she has not married, but boasts three regular lovers in three continents, chosen respectively for looks, intelligence, and virility. Not impossible, no, but one wonders why the author could not have built his novel around a woman with a more normal lifestyle, rather than a jet-setter from Hollywood romance. Bella's brother Aar is extraordinary too, portrayed more or less as a secular saint. Leaving Somalia at an early age, he worked on humanitarian causes for various NGOs before being killed in the first pages of the novel. His death causes Bella to fly back to Nairobi to look after his children, Salif and Dahaba, both young teens.
It is not a bad premise, although I felt that the gears never quite meshed. The action of the novel lasts a matter of weeks at most, which is simply not enough to address traumas of this sort. Much of the action is small-scale, such as deciding what to make for breakfast or where to go for carry-out. Bella seems to have the knack of doing the right things, such as consoling Dahaba and shaming Salif out of his belligerence, but it doesn't ring quite true. After one such confrontation, Salif acknowledges, "To be sure, I was out of order earlier. Can I rely on you to guide me and set me right when I go wrong?" This from a boy of 15? It is hard to imagine. And there is nothing in Bella's life, other than her love for her late brother, to suggest she would have such parenting skills at all. Besides, she would have huge adjustments of her own to face, giving up her international lifestyle and setting up as a single houseparent; nowhere does the character address these with anything like the seriousness they deserve.
The novel's title occurs only once in the book itself, in reference to closeted lesbians. The major plot-point in this almost-plotless book is the arrival of the children's mother, Valerie, who walked out on both husband and children ten years before to become a lesbian. To add to the rainbow cast, Valerie is English; her lover, Padmini, is a beautiful Indian, born in Uganda. Valerie arrives in Nairobi about a quarter-way into the book, claiming custody of the children. I found it hard to follow the logic of the action from that point on, partly because Bella is torn between treating Valerie politely as a grieving sister-in-law and opposing her as a rival, partly because the actual events are trivial, and partly because Valerie is presented as alcoholic, desperate, and a little insane.
Farah was born in Somalia himself, and he throws in many asides about the Somali character—even though none of the major surviving figures in his novel is pure-bred African. He looks at attitudes to homosexuality (both male and female) in his own country, Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. He has good things to say about the status of women, and such topics as female circumcision. But none of this is addressed through the story, rather by little instructional interludes or unlikely spurts of informative dialogue. He also has a way of neutralizing the most interesting things about his characters by telling them in long stretches of dry back-story soon after we meet them. To me, the balance between showing and telling was just wrong, so I never felt that intrinsic connection between character, place, and history which is the essential of a good novel.
January 15, 2019
This was a very slow read. A Somalian father and half brother gets blown up by terrorists while on a UN tour of duty in Mogadiscio. His half-sister, Bella, has to gather all of his documents, including his will, and moves to Nairobi to take care of his two children. Their mother left years ago to reside in another country with her lover, a woman she has lived with for years. Valerie, their mother, decides to go to Nairobi with her lover in order to try and gain her husband's inheritance, including the children. (They were never divorced). The children have to come to terms that their mother is a lesbian...and that is the reason she left them. Bella, the sister, wants to mother the children so that their lives are stable. (Valerie, throughout the book, reveals herself to be indulgent to her own needs, moody, and drinks alcohol even for breakfast). While this is a good plot, the repetition of each person's character, including the children, grew tiresome. This was not one of my favorite African authors...
March 8, 2015
What this book claims to be about, and what it actually represents, are two different things. Furthermore I felt like it was poorly edited and published primarily because of the author's academic stature. Disappointing and even annoying to finish; the redeeming quality was the political background, which is unusual for an American novel. It's good to be reminded that life is so precarious in much of the world...
January 29, 2019
Whilst there is little dramatic or thrilling about the storyline, the beauty is in how this book is written. In particular the observations on what would otherwise be mundane daily occurances kept me turning the page. I appreciate this might not be everyone's 'cup of tea' but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
January 2, 2015
I was surprised how poorly this was written. Although it had some interesting geopolitical intertwining and the story line was decent, it felt like I was reading something written by a middle schooler. Nobel prizer....not.
January 22, 2019
Bella’s life has been full of adventure, her successes in photography taking her to new cities in a heartbeat. Then the violent death of her most beloved, Aar her brother, brings her rocketing back to the continent of her birth. Not to suffer the loss alone, but to heed the familial duty of caring for his distraught young daughter and son, who may well be orphans as their mother has been completely absent of their lives. Life in Nairobi brings added pressure as it challenges the independence she nurtured in Europe and the city’s people harbour distaste towards her fellow Somali natives.
The author explores the theme of family responsibility quite well as he slowly reintroduces the children’s mother. While most would find Valerie’s actions shocking and her decision to run away lustfully with another women selfish, the author took this opportunity to explore these contemporary issues in an African context. For Homosexual African youth, this is informative yet it also challenges the balance between freedom and responsibility. Being Indian I could also relate to Bella’s sense of duty to her brother’s equally challenging adolescent kids.
We experience the author’s respect of feminine strength in the way that Bella navigates her new reality with such determination and ingenuity, sometimes maybe a little too perfectly. More subtly, we see this in the way Padmini breaks through her traditional Indian upbringing and the expectations that go along with that, as well as in the way she handles being humiliated in Uganda. We also see how the people around a young woman help to shape her own strength and how delicate it is, through Aar’s daughter Dahaba. The author tasks Bella with influencing the young woman through her own strength and Bella, in turn, enlists the help of Aar’s maturing son Salif.
For me, a novel is powerful when it has character development at its core and the story unfolds around that. I feel that the author was successful in achieving this as there were no major cliffhangers throughout the story, but there were scenes of Bella’s frustrations with the kids, Valerie’s flirtation in the midst of her drunken unraveling, Bella and Valerie’s stand offs and tactical ploys...these were the standout moments for me. The author went to lengths to describe the love between Bella and Aar, so one of the aspects that I found less believable was how clear headed Bella was so much of the time. With the loss of my father I learned that it is not the emotion of losing a loved one alone that breaks you but the mounting list of tasks and responsibilities that become overwhelming. I would have liked to see more of that vulnerability come through in the moments when Bella was alone especially.
Having visited Nairobi myself recently, I found the setting and cultural descriptions accurate and very immersive. The story has also given me a deeper appreciation for cities on the continent that I already have such respect for and things to look forward to exploring more on my next trip to Nairobi. I love that the characters have a freedom of expression that is channeled through the authors own strength in voicing opinions on issues that are already quite sensitive. In summary I would recommend this book, especially to younger people in more challenging African countries as it presents a great base for further dialogue.
The author explores the theme of family responsibility quite well as he slowly reintroduces the children’s mother. While most would find Valerie’s actions shocking and her decision to run away lustfully with another women selfish, the author took this opportunity to explore these contemporary issues in an African context. For Homosexual African youth, this is informative yet it also challenges the balance between freedom and responsibility. Being Indian I could also relate to Bella’s sense of duty to her brother’s equally challenging adolescent kids.
We experience the author’s respect of feminine strength in the way that Bella navigates her new reality with such determination and ingenuity, sometimes maybe a little too perfectly. More subtly, we see this in the way Padmini breaks through her traditional Indian upbringing and the expectations that go along with that, as well as in the way she handles being humiliated in Uganda. We also see how the people around a young woman help to shape her own strength and how delicate it is, through Aar’s daughter Dahaba. The author tasks Bella with influencing the young woman through her own strength and Bella, in turn, enlists the help of Aar’s maturing son Salif.
For me, a novel is powerful when it has character development at its core and the story unfolds around that. I feel that the author was successful in achieving this as there were no major cliffhangers throughout the story, but there were scenes of Bella’s frustrations with the kids, Valerie’s flirtation in the midst of her drunken unraveling, Bella and Valerie’s stand offs and tactical ploys...these were the standout moments for me. The author went to lengths to describe the love between Bella and Aar, so one of the aspects that I found less believable was how clear headed Bella was so much of the time. With the loss of my father I learned that it is not the emotion of losing a loved one alone that breaks you but the mounting list of tasks and responsibilities that become overwhelming. I would have liked to see more of that vulnerability come through in the moments when Bella was alone especially.
Having visited Nairobi myself recently, I found the setting and cultural descriptions accurate and very immersive. The story has also given me a deeper appreciation for cities on the continent that I already have such respect for and things to look forward to exploring more on my next trip to Nairobi. I love that the characters have a freedom of expression that is channeled through the authors own strength in voicing opinions on issues that are already quite sensitive. In summary I would recommend this book, especially to younger people in more challenging African countries as it presents a great base for further dialogue.
August 5, 2019
Hiding in Plain Sight by Nuruddin Farah is an interesting book for anyone who has been to Somalia and is resident in Kenya or is a Kenyan resident. The setting is relatable, almost all places are familiar, and the events are topical - the terrorism in Somalia, Al Shabaab, Somali clan dynamics, Islamism, matters religion, lesbianism, and the NGO life. However, it is too cliched, dragging (almost boring), the language not so well developed, and not well researched (how could a character move from 680 Hotel to Kimanthi Street on a taxi?).
When Bella learns of her half-brother Aar's death in a suicide bomb attack at a UN HQ in Mogadicio, Somalia, she is devastated. She decides to sacrifice her happiness and freedom to take care of Aar's children because their mother abandoned them a long time ago to pursue her romanticism in other women. Bella has no issues with Valerie being a lesbian, but Valerie's undoing is abandoning her children.
Bella gets back to Nairobi to take care of her brother's children and estate, something that Valerie decides not to contest because her marriage to Aar was "out of community of property marriage" and she does not have the resources to. Valerie is welcome with mixed reactions by the children, Salif and Dahaba, who seem to have been brought up to ask the hard questions.
The book is quite a read, with a great Chapter One and elaborate and simple story telling; but on a general it is a weak book: one, the language is not tightened enough to fit the characters, especially Salif and Dahaba who have been given a language beyond their years, and they sometimes speak like robots making it feel that the author was forcing them to speak that way. The story drags a lot, with so much family shenanigans one would care to know. It is not well researched, especially locations (from 680 Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya one can not take a taxi to go to Kimanthi Street; and Kimanthi Street is not crowded with hoodlums, street urchins, and idlers - that describes some parts of Moi Avenue well).
Well, apart from the weakness (which sadly drops a rather good story to a deplorable two stars), it is a good story.
When Bella learns of her half-brother Aar's death in a suicide bomb attack at a UN HQ in Mogadicio, Somalia, she is devastated. She decides to sacrifice her happiness and freedom to take care of Aar's children because their mother abandoned them a long time ago to pursue her romanticism in other women. Bella has no issues with Valerie being a lesbian, but Valerie's undoing is abandoning her children.
Bella gets back to Nairobi to take care of her brother's children and estate, something that Valerie decides not to contest because her marriage to Aar was "out of community of property marriage" and she does not have the resources to. Valerie is welcome with mixed reactions by the children, Salif and Dahaba, who seem to have been brought up to ask the hard questions.
The book is quite a read, with a great Chapter One and elaborate and simple story telling; but on a general it is a weak book: one, the language is not tightened enough to fit the characters, especially Salif and Dahaba who have been given a language beyond their years, and they sometimes speak like robots making it feel that the author was forcing them to speak that way. The story drags a lot, with so much family shenanigans one would care to know. It is not well researched, especially locations (from 680 Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya one can not take a taxi to go to Kimanthi Street; and Kimanthi Street is not crowded with hoodlums, street urchins, and idlers - that describes some parts of Moi Avenue well).
Well, apart from the weakness (which sadly drops a rather good story to a deplorable two stars), it is a good story.
August 18, 2018
The main character: Bella, born in Somalia, now a glamorous professional photographer based in Italy. The plot: her brother Aar, a UN employee working in Somalia, is killed in a terrorist attack; so Bella goes to Kenya to take custody of his two children. Then the children's long-estranged mother shows up, also wanting custody.
There are a number of complex issues in play in this book: what it means to be Somalian, the expatriate experience, African attitudes towards homosexuality. Combined with the book's complex interpersonal relationships, it was an easy book to be absorbed in while I was reading it. Thinking about the book afterwards, however, I find more reasons for criticism than praise. A couple of the biggest problems:
This is how the author describes the main character: "She is a dark-eyed beauty with a prominent nose, heavier in the chest than she likes because of the attention it draws from men, even though she is overjoyed that she boasts the slimmest of waists for a woman her age and an African's high buttocks. Drop-dead gorgeous, she also strikes most people as charming, well-read, and intelligent." So she has it all, including a glamorous job with lots of international travel; men want her, women want to be her, and so forth. If she'd been written by a female author she'd seem like a wish-fulfillment fantasy. Perhaps she is anyway. In addition to all that, she spends the book navigating all the interpersonal conflicts therein with consummate grace, tact, and wisdom; putting aside her own grief for the sake of her brother's children; correcting their behavior with a well-turned remark or two. She comes across as too perfect a person to be real.
Then there's Valerie, the children's mother, who is the exact opposite, behaving in chaotic, destructive, inexplicable ways. The only explanation we ever receive for her actions is that she was sexually abused by her father when she was young; which feels entirely too facile.
I'm not saying this is a terrible book. It kept me engrossed. But, considering Farah's high reputation, I trust he's written much better ones.
There are a number of complex issues in play in this book: what it means to be Somalian, the expatriate experience, African attitudes towards homosexuality. Combined with the book's complex interpersonal relationships, it was an easy book to be absorbed in while I was reading it. Thinking about the book afterwards, however, I find more reasons for criticism than praise. A couple of the biggest problems:
This is how the author describes the main character: "She is a dark-eyed beauty with a prominent nose, heavier in the chest than she likes because of the attention it draws from men, even though she is overjoyed that she boasts the slimmest of waists for a woman her age and an African's high buttocks. Drop-dead gorgeous, she also strikes most people as charming, well-read, and intelligent." So she has it all, including a glamorous job with lots of international travel; men want her, women want to be her, and so forth. If she'd been written by a female author she'd seem like a wish-fulfillment fantasy. Perhaps she is anyway. In addition to all that, she spends the book navigating all the interpersonal conflicts therein with consummate grace, tact, and wisdom; putting aside her own grief for the sake of her brother's children; correcting their behavior with a well-turned remark or two. She comes across as too perfect a person to be real.
Then there's Valerie, the children's mother, who is the exact opposite, behaving in chaotic, destructive, inexplicable ways. The only explanation we ever receive for her actions is that she was sexually abused by her father when she was young; which feels entirely too facile.
I'm not saying this is a terrible book. It kept me engrossed. But, considering Farah's high reputation, I trust he's written much better ones.
May 18, 2020
The ideas seem better than the book. The characters are too predicable , the bad were bad and the good very, very good like the sister. The daughter, to me, was acceptable; the son, a touch too grown up, the ex-wife uite evil. I wish I had had better feeling for the city and the country. Just sort of blah
Critics:::A bold new novel that “augments a body of work worthy of a Nobel Prize” (Kirkus Reviews), from the internationally acclaimed author of North of Dawn
Nuruddin Farah—“the most important African novelist to emerge in the past twenty-five years” (The New York Review of Books)—returns with a provocative, unforgettable tale about family, freedom, and loyalty. A departure in theme and setting, Hiding in Plain Sight is a profound exploration of the tensions between liberty and obligation, the ways in which gender and sexual orientation define us, and the unintended consequences of the secrets we keep.
When Bella, a fashion photographer living in Rome, learns of her beloved half-brother’s murder, she travels to Nairobi to care for her niece and nephew. But when their mother resurfaces, reasserting her maternal rights and bringing with her a gale of chaos and confusion that mirrors the deepening political instability in the region, Bella must decide how far she will go to obey the call of sisterly responsibility.
Critics:::A bold new novel that “augments a body of work worthy of a Nobel Prize” (Kirkus Reviews), from the internationally acclaimed author of North of Dawn
Nuruddin Farah—“the most important African novelist to emerge in the past twenty-five years” (The New York Review of Books)—returns with a provocative, unforgettable tale about family, freedom, and loyalty. A departure in theme and setting, Hiding in Plain Sight is a profound exploration of the tensions between liberty and obligation, the ways in which gender and sexual orientation define us, and the unintended consequences of the secrets we keep.
When Bella, a fashion photographer living in Rome, learns of her beloved half-brother’s murder, she travels to Nairobi to care for her niece and nephew. But when their mother resurfaces, reasserting her maternal rights and bringing with her a gale of chaos and confusion that mirrors the deepening political instability in the region, Bella must decide how far she will go to obey the call of sisterly responsibility.
June 26, 2017
A quarter of my way into Hiding in Plain Sight, struggling with the awkward, almost amateurish prose, I stomped off to Google the Somalian author Nuruddin Farah. And what do I learn? That Farah is viewed as one of the great contemporary writers. Perennially in contention for the Nobel Prize! Hailed by Nadine Gordimer as one of the continent's "true interpreters." *blinks in astonished disbelief"*
Admittedly, I had read a short story of his, which I greatly enjoyed. And when I got my hands on a copy of this book, I barely skimmed reviews before I plunged right into it, trusting in the glowing nature of most reviews. The synopsis does no disservice to the plotline or the focus of the book: "Bella, an internationally known fashion photographer, learns of the murder of her beloved half brother by political extremists in Mogadiscio. The two had different fathers but shared a Somali mother, from whom Bella’s inherited her freewheeling ways. But with her teenage niece and nephew effectively orphaned – their mother abandoned them years ago—she feels an unfamiliar surge of protective feeling. When their mother resurfaces, reasserting her maternal rights and bringing with her a gale of chaos and confusion that mirror the deepening political instability in the region, Bella has to decide how far she will go to obey the call of sisterly responsibility."
What no synopsis will tell you, however, is that Farah approaches weighty themes like the conflict between freedom and duty, the interplay of the political and personal with a heavy hand. As someone who has been in self-imposed exile for years (because the Somali government threatened to arrest him), he strives to be a reliable guide to the country's political, economic and cultural turmoil. But occasionally didactic, often stilted, his prose doesn't do justice to the enormity of the trauma at the center of the story. His dialogues forcefully and awkwardly fit political opinions and ideas into random conversations between teenagers and adults, which quickly and amicably get resolved. Like, huh?
Very, very puzzled by this book.
Admittedly, I had read a short story of his, which I greatly enjoyed. And when I got my hands on a copy of this book, I barely skimmed reviews before I plunged right into it, trusting in the glowing nature of most reviews. The synopsis does no disservice to the plotline or the focus of the book: "Bella, an internationally known fashion photographer, learns of the murder of her beloved half brother by political extremists in Mogadiscio. The two had different fathers but shared a Somali mother, from whom Bella’s inherited her freewheeling ways. But with her teenage niece and nephew effectively orphaned – their mother abandoned them years ago—she feels an unfamiliar surge of protective feeling. When their mother resurfaces, reasserting her maternal rights and bringing with her a gale of chaos and confusion that mirror the deepening political instability in the region, Bella has to decide how far she will go to obey the call of sisterly responsibility."
What no synopsis will tell you, however, is that Farah approaches weighty themes like the conflict between freedom and duty, the interplay of the political and personal with a heavy hand. As someone who has been in self-imposed exile for years (because the Somali government threatened to arrest him), he strives to be a reliable guide to the country's political, economic and cultural turmoil. But occasionally didactic, often stilted, his prose doesn't do justice to the enormity of the trauma at the center of the story. His dialogues forcefully and awkwardly fit political opinions and ideas into random conversations between teenagers and adults, which quickly and amicably get resolved. Like, huh?
Very, very puzzled by this book.
May 18, 2024
I thought this would be a fascinating story and give me a perspective on cultures I know very little about. And, in a way, I was half right. The story started off interesting, but it went... nowhere. The second half of the story lacked any real development in the story arc.
Aar seems like the most interesting character, his fate is a shame, though it was well written and rather interesting. Valerie is such an unlikeable character, credit to Farah's writing for that, and it continued to annoy me how Bella would entertain her, despite how rude and utterly disrespectful Valerie continued to be. And perhaps this is a cultural thing I don't understand, but Dahaba asking Valerie if she's read much gay literature seems to be too much (Bella and Salif try to signal her to stop), but Valerie can ask Bella if she was subjected to genital mutilation? What?
I'll try something else by Farah, but I'm just disappointed how the whole plot of this book was "will the shitty mother who abandoned her children get custody?" and it was just... flat. But the cover is beautiful, it's what drew me to the book.
Aar seems like the most interesting character, his fate is a shame, though it was well written and rather interesting. Valerie is such an unlikeable character, credit to Farah's writing for that, and it continued to annoy me how Bella would entertain her, despite how rude and utterly disrespectful Valerie continued to be. And perhaps this is a cultural thing I don't understand, but Dahaba asking Valerie if she's read much gay literature seems to be too much (Bella and Salif try to signal her to stop), but Valerie can ask Bella if she was subjected to genital mutilation? What?
I'll try something else by Farah, but I'm just disappointed how the whole plot of this book was "will the shitty mother who abandoned her children get custody?" and it was just... flat. But the cover is beautiful, it's what drew me to the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 17, 2025
I thought this would be a fascinating story and give me a perspective on cultures I know very little about. And, in a way, I was half right. The story started off interesting, but it went... nowhere. The second half of the story lacked any real development in the story arc.
Aar seems like the most interesting character, his fate is a shame, though it was well written and rather interesting. Valerie is such an unlikeable character, credit to Farah's writing for that, and it continued to annoy me how Bella would entertain her, despite how rude and utterly disrespectful Valerie continued to be. And perhaps this is a cultural thing I don't understand, but Dahaba asking Valerie if she's read much gay literature seems to be too much (Bella and Salif try to signal her to stop), but Valerie can ask Bella if she was subjected to genital mutilation? What?
I'll try something else by Farah, but I'm just disappointed how the whole plot of this book was "will the shitty mother who abandoned her children get custody?" and it was just... flat. But the cover is beautiful, it's what drew me to the book.
Aar seems like the most interesting character, his fate is a shame, though it was well written and rather interesting. Valerie is such an unlikeable character, credit to Farah's writing for that, and it continued to annoy me how Bella would entertain her, despite how rude and utterly disrespectful Valerie continued to be. And perhaps this is a cultural thing I don't understand, but Dahaba asking Valerie if she's read much gay literature seems to be too much (Bella and Salif try to signal her to stop), but Valerie can ask Bella if she was subjected to genital mutilation? What?
I'll try something else by Farah, but I'm just disappointed how the whole plot of this book was "will the shitty mother who abandoned her children get custody?" and it was just... flat. But the cover is beautiful, it's what drew me to the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 1, 2019
This book annoyed me so much. Bella is continuously acting like some kind of saint and like she's above everything and constantly correcting her brother's children. What annoyed me most is that she constantly runs to defend Valerie when the kids say something negative about her, even though she can't stand her either and Valerie's just a horrible human being. She denies what the kids say and turns it around and which I found really annoying. What about showing them support? Or if she wants to continuously teach them stuff, why not teach them that it's okay the set limits for other people and call them out when they go over them instead of defending that person. Blegh! Really do not recommend.
I also never figured out why the book has the title it has. Anyone care to explain?
I also never figured out why the book has the title it has. Anyone care to explain?
January 17, 2021
I really enjoy Farah's writing and his sense of place that comes through so well. This story brings in both Somalia and Kenya, and touches on Somali refugees. What I love about this story is how it weaves together very diverse characters and how their backgrounds: Somali, British, Dutch, Indian, Italian, German, and Kenyan, all influence Nairobi and this small sphere they inhabit.
The story begins with the murder of a man named Aar, who is targeted by al-Shabaab and killed in Mogadishu in an attack on the UN compound. But the real story is how the people in his life come together afterward and forge a new way forward. It is a beautiful story. I gave it only three stars because it lost its way in the second half I thought. But I loved the first half and it ends well.
The story begins with the murder of a man named Aar, who is targeted by al-Shabaab and killed in Mogadishu in an attack on the UN compound. But the real story is how the people in his life come together afterward and forge a new way forward. It is a beautiful story. I gave it only three stars because it lost its way in the second half I thought. But I loved the first half and it ends well.
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