There Has to Be a Knife

by Adnan Khan

In this blistering debut novel, author Adnan Khan investigates themes of race, class, masculinity and contemporary relationships. Omar Ali, twenty-seven-year-old line cook and petty criminal, gets a phone call from his ex-girlfriend’s father at work, informing Omar that Anna has committed suicide. Unable to process or articulate his grief, and suffering from insomnia, Omar embarks on a quest to obtain her suicide note from her elusive parents. As he unravels, Omar finds himself getting involved in break-ins, online terrorism, dealing with the police, and losing his best friend as he becomes less recognizable.

There Has to Be a Knife examines expectations -- both intimate and political -- on brown men, exploring ideas of cultural identity and the tropes we use to represent them.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Adult Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 2019

Reviews

[Pam Z (Pam's Shenanigans)]

Not for me. DNFed at 60%. I wanted so bad to finish this and just get it over with. But it's just one of those books that I'm sure will send me spiraling to a reading slump again.

[Nicole Sarauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will sit with me for a while. Crushing, haunting, and very well written.

[Fatima Moosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a disturbingly brilliant book

[Cathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

awful....50 pages was more than enough

[Marin · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5-3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

“There Has to Be a Knife” is about Omar Ali, who is struggling to understand the recent suicide of his ex-girlfriend, Anna. Omar is also convinced Anna left him a note, and while he searches for answers he turns to crime, alcohol, weed, and new girls to cope. In the midst of this, Omar also begins posting inflammatory posts on Reddit, which soon catches the attention of the local RCMP. Threatened with convictions, the police try to convince Omar to infiltrate a few Toronto mosques, who they suspect are harbouring terrorist cells. I wanted to read this book because I was intrigued by the premise and I tried so hard to get into it, but I just couldn’t. The informant plot is almost non-existent, so marketing the book with a focus on that aspect feels disingenuous. More than anything this book is about grief and how Omar tries to deal with his... unfortunately I wasn’t too keen to read all the *ahem* rather graphic ways he goes about that (I’m not a prude, buuuut I do have limits lol). The way the novel is structured is also not my favourite. There is a lot of back and forth dialogue but you often don’t know who is saying what. I hate having to go back and try to figure out who said what first. It’s sooo distracting and takes the reader out of the story. I kept trying to see that aspect as a deliberate author choice to essentially disorient the reader and get them into the same headspace as Omar (so in that sense, it worked) but I more so found it alienating. I was intrigued by Anna once I learned more about her, and I wish the novel had spent more time on her and Omar’s relationship rather than the snippets here and there. Overall, the book just didn’t feel “complete” if that makes any sense 🤷🏼‍♀️ A bit all over the place with a rather abrupt ending.

[Sue Fowler · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was quite possibly one of the worst books I have ever read, at least recently. In the beginning I was excited to read a book written by a Canadian author and set in Toronto, ON. I did love the cultural and place references to Toronto in the book, as many places were familiar to me, but that’s where my enjoyment ended. Perhaps being a 50-something white woman living in small town Ontario fully influenced my negative view, but more than once I found myself desperate to get out of the main character Omar’s head, as a good deal of the book is spent there. Is there some deep-seated racial bias there? I hope not, but perhaps that’s a question to be asked of us all in today’s climate of racial inequality and injustice. Mostly, I just wanted to tell him to grow up and quit acting like a petulant teenager. Certainly this was a man who experienced pain, anger, disassociation and fear in his life. It could also be said that it’s a book about the choices we make and the consequences we reap as a result. Mostly though, I could not wait to finish it up and get away from it. I did also find the writing style difficult to follow, where is was hard to know which character was speaking.

[ALAA K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book randomly from local library as I was seduced by its trailer. My first impression was that the writer's style could be read with certain ease . The main character's construction started smoothly while other characters were introduced subsequently. However, past the 50th page or so, it started to become very repetitive I could easily skip big chunks of text without missing much of the intrigue.
I felt like some of the main character's thoughts and faced situations narrated in the book were based on the author's personal experience. Perhaps I missed something or wasn't focused enough, but the overall story kind of lead to nowhere with a particularly "open" ending .

[Ajk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one really messed me up! The back bills it as a story of toxic masculinity, which is really the best frame to read it: Omar isn't a hero, or an antihero, he's just a guy who happens to be telling a story.
That said, he's a tremendous fuckup so it can be a bit mysterious for a while what we're leading to. But the last 40-50 pages is just tremendous. It's one of those books I wish I could've read 15 years ago. I hope you read it, too.

[Leslie Bock · Rating 2 out of 5]

The two stars are because there is some redeeming well written prose in this book but otherwise I hate it and cannot even finish. And that is a RARE thing for me. It is incredibly depressing-not in a worthwhile way. I find I don't give a rat's ass about any of the characters and find the main one especially unlikeable. I thought the mystery surrounding the girlfriend's suicide would at least carry me to the end but nope! I don't care!

[Diane B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreaking story of an on-again, off-again romance that touches on complexities of race and class. The central character, Omar, asks some difficult questions in these pages and it is to the author's credit that they don't try to provide easy answers.
Highly recommend!

[Brody Weld · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know that when you open a novel with a character death, you're sort of obliged to then depict a realistic grieving process. The author did that well, but it made for a very very slow first half - and then the plot points teased on the rear cover don't even really happen.

[Amy Pugsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this immediately after finishing, "Hypebeast" and while I didn't love this one as much it's clear that Khan is a great writer and deserves his accolades. This story was heartbreaking, and the writing was a stream of consciousness journey into the protagonist's profound pain. It is clear Khan knows the cultures of the people he writes about which I appreciate. His characters feel like people I know or have met, his settings are Canadian- centric, and his narratives reflect the diversity of Canada for better or worse.

[Margaret Gardner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not my style

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast paced thriller type read. Interesting themes and unique story premise... wish it ended with more gusto. Loved the Toronto setting elements.

[Magida El-Kassis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bummed out that this ended. I wanted it to last longer.
Really enjoyed the writing style