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Tell Her Everything
The acclaimed and award-winning novel, Tell Her Everything, is a heartbreaking, brilliant, and emotionally absorbing novel about ethics, filial love, and the corrosive nature of complicity.
As he prepares for a visit from his estranged daughter, Dr K, a retired surgeon enjoying the comforts of retirement in London, rehearses the conversations he will have with her over the course of her visit. It’s been years since he has seen her. He spent much of his time polishing the confession he wants to make to her.
As her visit gets closer, he recalls the country, a prosperous oil monarchy, he left India for to make his home and career. A dream job, the hospital he worked was just a ten minute walk from home. He had access to a lifestyle that he would never have had back home. Money and success came quickly, but the price was steep and often unbearable, especially to a wife and daughter who watch him walk the perilous path of lifelong ambition.
TELL HER EVERYTHING is a tense, visceral and moving novel about a father's love for his daughter and a medical professional gripping with remorse, shame and despair. Recalling the work of Ishiguro, Coatzee and Kafka, it asks: Where does one draw the line between empathy and sacrifice? Between integrity and survival. Between prosperity and love?
As he prepares for a visit from his estranged daughter, Dr K, a retired surgeon enjoying the comforts of retirement in London, rehearses the conversations he will have with her over the course of her visit. It’s been years since he has seen her. He spent much of his time polishing the confession he wants to make to her.
As her visit gets closer, he recalls the country, a prosperous oil monarchy, he left India for to make his home and career. A dream job, the hospital he worked was just a ten minute walk from home. He had access to a lifestyle that he would never have had back home. Money and success came quickly, but the price was steep and often unbearable, especially to a wife and daughter who watch him walk the perilous path of lifelong ambition.
TELL HER EVERYTHING is a tense, visceral and moving novel about a father's love for his daughter and a medical professional gripping with remorse, shame and despair. Recalling the work of Ishiguro, Coatzee and Kafka, it asks: Where does one draw the line between empathy and sacrifice? Between integrity and survival. Between prosperity and love?
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 22, 2019
74 people are currently reading
3588 people want to read
About the author
Mirza Waheed
9 books202 followersMirza Waheed was born and brought up in Kashmir. His debut novel, The Collaborator, was an international bestseller, a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award and the Shakti Bhat Prize, and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. In 2011, Waterstones selected it as part of its big literary debut promotion, ‘Waterstones 11’. It was also a book of the year for The Telegraph, New Statesman, Financial Times, Business Standard, and Telegraph India, among others. His second novel, The Book of Gold Leaves, was published in 2014 to critical acclaim.
The Book of Gold Leaves was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016, longlisted for the Folio Prize, and was a finalist for the 2015 Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year (Fiction).
Mirza has written for the BBC, the Guardian, Granta, Guernica, Scroll India, Caravan Magazine, Wriers Mosaic, Al Jazeera English, and The New York Times.
Waheed’s latest novel Tell Her Everything was nominated for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 and Tata Literature Live Book of the Year. It won the Hindu Prize for Fiction 2019.
Tell Her Everything was published by Melville House in the US and the UK in February 2023.
Waheed’s new novel Maryam & Son will be published in 2025.
The Book of Gold Leaves was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016, longlisted for the Folio Prize, and was a finalist for the 2015 Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year (Fiction).
Mirza has written for the BBC, the Guardian, Granta, Guernica, Scroll India, Caravan Magazine, Wriers Mosaic, Al Jazeera English, and The New York Times.
Waheed’s latest novel Tell Her Everything was nominated for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 and Tata Literature Live Book of the Year. It won the Hindu Prize for Fiction 2019.
Tell Her Everything was published by Melville House in the US and the UK in February 2023.
Waheed’s new novel Maryam & Son will be published in 2025.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
June 21, 2020
3.50 *
Tell Her Everything by Mirza Waheed is a book that will try your patience as a reader for at its center is a monologue of a retired doctor who is thinking out aloud over unloading a lifetime of silence to his daughter who he’s sent abroad ‘for a better education, a better life’.The entire book has Dr Kaiser Shah trying to figure out whether his daughterSara will be able to understand the choices he has made, the dilemmas he has battled over the actions that he has carried out as a job in the hospital he is employed in, in a country that remains unnamed but where punishment for crime entails amputations.
The repeated entreaties in the monologue by Dr K works as a device depicting the acute weight of his despair, the forlorn sum of his existence over the years and a plea to be absolved of the guilt of his silence and complicity. The core of the situation that Dr K finds himself is one of trying to shift through the past and why he did what he did and trying to come to terms with the larger question of a legal practice that is at odds with a moral compass or ethical standing and where it leaves a person.
There are additional themes of how immigrants try to toe the line in a new country, just so to be accepted, to be seen and recognized. But it is mostly about how the weight of years of silent complicity can leave one hollow and grasping for some peace. If you love books that will keep you bound in a moral quandary and if you are a patient reader, this is the book for you.
Tell Her Everything by Mirza Waheed is a book that will try your patience as a reader for at its center is a monologue of a retired doctor who is thinking out aloud over unloading a lifetime of silence to his daughter who he’s sent abroad ‘for a better education, a better life’.The entire book has Dr Kaiser Shah trying to figure out whether his daughterSara will be able to understand the choices he has made, the dilemmas he has battled over the actions that he has carried out as a job in the hospital he is employed in, in a country that remains unnamed but where punishment for crime entails amputations.
The repeated entreaties in the monologue by Dr K works as a device depicting the acute weight of his despair, the forlorn sum of his existence over the years and a plea to be absolved of the guilt of his silence and complicity. The core of the situation that Dr K finds himself is one of trying to shift through the past and why he did what he did and trying to come to terms with the larger question of a legal practice that is at odds with a moral compass or ethical standing and where it leaves a person.
There are additional themes of how immigrants try to toe the line in a new country, just so to be accepted, to be seen and recognized. But it is mostly about how the weight of years of silent complicity can leave one hollow and grasping for some peace. If you love books that will keep you bound in a moral quandary and if you are a patient reader, this is the book for you.
August 1, 2021
A couple of years back, immediately after reading "Reader" by Bernard Schlink, I did a mini google research on pieces on how all the cogs in the Nazi engine (actually on either side - including the nuclear bomb) were able to execute such horrendous acts on humanity. I came across Hannah Arendt a political philosopher whose most hard-hitting truth was you don't have to be inherently evil to commit an act of evil. It is what you have come to see as 'normal'.
Mirza Waheed's Tell Her Everything is a long monologue of Dr.Kaiser Shah who is preparing to come clean to his daughter Sara of the why and how of his acts. A man who meanders into multiple topics just to delay the moment of truth, he explains his life as a faithful husband, a loving father, a dutiful son, a forgiving friend and a man of science. These of course have some dissonance with his actions - but this is what he is trying to convey as we finally get to know he is the "punishment-doctor". Also absolve himself for the slowly revealed tragedy and a more personal one of being an absentee father after his wife Atia's sudden death.
Interwoven in the monologue is also the letter written by Sara over a train journey on her feelings about who he was and making sense of his actions. This was a part I did not fully understand - not because you want to know how this is received - but most of the emotions are without context. Biju, his carefree bachelor friend who later becomes his critic is also an enigma since he doesn't seem to be choosing a moral high ground but merely a contempt for his friend's rise.
Overall, the book lived up to it's promise of delivering a justifiably horrendous guilt, not to mention quite literally told her everything. An author to watch out for.
Mirza Waheed's Tell Her Everything is a long monologue of Dr.Kaiser Shah who is preparing to come clean to his daughter Sara of the why and how of his acts. A man who meanders into multiple topics just to delay the moment of truth, he explains his life as a faithful husband, a loving father, a dutiful son, a forgiving friend and a man of science. These of course have some dissonance with his actions - but this is what he is trying to convey as we finally get to know he is the "punishment-doctor". Also absolve himself for the slowly revealed tragedy and a more personal one of being an absentee father after his wife Atia's sudden death.
Interwoven in the monologue is also the letter written by Sara over a train journey on her feelings about who he was and making sense of his actions. This was a part I did not fully understand - not because you want to know how this is received - but most of the emotions are without context. Biju, his carefree bachelor friend who later becomes his critic is also an enigma since he doesn't seem to be choosing a moral high ground but merely a contempt for his friend's rise.
Overall, the book lived up to it's promise of delivering a justifiably horrendous guilt, not to mention quite literally told her everything. An author to watch out for.
March 7, 2019
“You know, Urdu has perhaps the finest word for autobiography. Two words, as a matter of fact. Savanah-e-Umri - the occurrences or accidents of one’s life, literally. I like it over everything else. Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t that what really happens to us all, occurrences, accident?”
Excerpt from Tell her everything.
Excerpt from Tell her everything.
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March 20, 2023reviewed for the Chicago Review of Books: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2023/03/...
By most accounts, one is considered a wild success if he grows up in poverty in a rural village in India and then overcomes the obstacles imposed by those circumstances to become become a surgeon in London, then a senior department leader in a hospital, and then retires in a riverside penthouse—the type of aspirational success a society might even weave into its national mythos, akin to the “American dream.” Such success stories recall days of hardship and suffering defined by want. Naturally, the resolution of these stories is a life defined by financial independence and flourishing. But what’s left out from narratives focused on material transformation is the equally radical transformation of one’s interior self from the dramatic change in circumstance over the course of a single lifetime. If your moral compass was calibrated during years of escaping poverty and indignity, will it still be capable of guiding you once you’ve escaped? Or will its earlier calibration lead to your destruction?
Tell Her Everything, a novel by the Kashmiri-British writer Mirza Waheed, sits in the shadows of this question. The story promises to be a retrospective: Dr. Kaisar, an Indian-born retired surgeon living in England, wants to tell his daughter “everything.” The novel takes the form of a series of conversations Dr. Kaisar imagines he’ll have with his daughter, Sara, when she comes to visit him. He rehearses what he’ll tell her about the life he has lived and the responses she may give. Within the first few pages, the stakes of his confessional emerge: his wife has passed away; he does not have a meaningful relationship with Sara, or with a friend with whom he was once close; some decisions he made in his career continue to haunt him; and those decisions may have led to his present circumstances. But he’s optimistic that whatever unfolds with Sara will offer a chance to—hopefully, maybe—start fresh, not only in their relationship but in his relationship with himself, too.
But why and how this situation came about is elusive. Every chapter starts with some rendition of his intention to come clean to his daughter, but as the book unfolds, Dr. Kaisar circles around the same questions about his wife, work, friendships, and daughter. New details emerge with each lap, but the picture is muddled—and the truth obfuscated—by his excuses, interpretations, and justifications of the decisions he made. Through each retelling, we come to learn that his wife passed away from sudden cardiac arrest at a time when they were living in a presumably Gulf country where he was working as a surgeon after a brief stint in London. Shortly after her death, he decides to send their daughter off to boarding school in the United States, where his brother-in-law lives, for reasons with which Dr. Kaiser never fully comes to terms. The most disturbing decision he makes—and possibly what pushed him to send his daughter to boarding school when she needed the love of a parent most—is to become an integral part of a team in the hospital that surgically amputates the hands of convicted thieves.
Saying that he “decided” to become a punishment-surgeon is an interpretive choice, and one that Dr. Kaisar fights throughout the novel. Any time he divulges new details about his work and the circumstances surrounding it, he recites a litany of excuses and justifications.
Indeed, the very first line of the book is, “I did it for the money.” The impact of Dr. Kaisar’s impoverished upbringing lingers in the background of his accounts. Early in the novel, he tells a story of working alongside his father as a teenager to transcribe letters for his wealthier relatives. Working a small side job with his father seems unremarkable, but for Dr. Kaisar, it’s a moment he never forgets. It’s the moment he declares to himself that this was not the type of life he wanted to live, nor was it the type of life he wanted to pass on to his children. This story, alongside other memories, seem formative in his sense of self and what he strives for in life.
Money has its own costs, though. Dr. Kaisar’s retelling of his own story is too fragmented to draw a causal relationship between his upbringing and his later decisions to take the lead on amputating people’s hands, but he leaves enough hints to show how prioritizing wealth corrupted his perception of his life and relationships. In one chilling scene, when Dr. Kaisar imagines telling Sara about the embarrassment and shame he felt watching his father send his wife to the door to receive a debt-collector instead of going himself, he imagines Sara recoiling and curling up in a ball. Noticing her position, Dr. Kaisar immediately tells her she can put her feet down even if she’s cold because the floors in his penthouse are heated. It doesn’t occur to him that she could be curled up in response to the weight of his words—that the feeling of hearing one’s father tell such a vulnerable story could elicit a physical reaction. He’s so attuned to her material needs and comfort—the things he lacked himself as a child—that he reads those needs into every situation, at the expense of recognizing what other emotions Sara might be experiencing, or what else she might need from him as a father.
Tell Her Everything is a layered recital of intricately woven hauntings, decisions, and confessions. It is a story of a man who loves his daughter and wants to provide her with the upbringing he never had; it is a story of a man who is more than complicit in a horrible system of punishment; and it is also a story of how the desire to be a good provider can push one to unspeakable limits—how the shame of transgressing those limits can destroy the very relationships you sacrificed for, in addition to one’s sense of self. This novel presents a series of moral complexities but doesn’t attempt to offer clear answers or settle for easy resolutions—the disquietude is central to its effectiveness. It is also a book that rewards patience. Reading the novel feels like walking into a room mid-conversation, and the conversation continues uninterrupted with your arrival. But if you stick around, you’ll encounter a story that is at once haunting, tender, and gripping.
By most accounts, one is considered a wild success if he grows up in poverty in a rural village in India and then overcomes the obstacles imposed by those circumstances to become become a surgeon in London, then a senior department leader in a hospital, and then retires in a riverside penthouse—the type of aspirational success a society might even weave into its national mythos, akin to the “American dream.” Such success stories recall days of hardship and suffering defined by want. Naturally, the resolution of these stories is a life defined by financial independence and flourishing. But what’s left out from narratives focused on material transformation is the equally radical transformation of one’s interior self from the dramatic change in circumstance over the course of a single lifetime. If your moral compass was calibrated during years of escaping poverty and indignity, will it still be capable of guiding you once you’ve escaped? Or will its earlier calibration lead to your destruction?
Tell Her Everything, a novel by the Kashmiri-British writer Mirza Waheed, sits in the shadows of this question. The story promises to be a retrospective: Dr. Kaisar, an Indian-born retired surgeon living in England, wants to tell his daughter “everything.” The novel takes the form of a series of conversations Dr. Kaisar imagines he’ll have with his daughter, Sara, when she comes to visit him. He rehearses what he’ll tell her about the life he has lived and the responses she may give. Within the first few pages, the stakes of his confessional emerge: his wife has passed away; he does not have a meaningful relationship with Sara, or with a friend with whom he was once close; some decisions he made in his career continue to haunt him; and those decisions may have led to his present circumstances. But he’s optimistic that whatever unfolds with Sara will offer a chance to—hopefully, maybe—start fresh, not only in their relationship but in his relationship with himself, too.
But why and how this situation came about is elusive. Every chapter starts with some rendition of his intention to come clean to his daughter, but as the book unfolds, Dr. Kaisar circles around the same questions about his wife, work, friendships, and daughter. New details emerge with each lap, but the picture is muddled—and the truth obfuscated—by his excuses, interpretations, and justifications of the decisions he made. Through each retelling, we come to learn that his wife passed away from sudden cardiac arrest at a time when they were living in a presumably Gulf country where he was working as a surgeon after a brief stint in London. Shortly after her death, he decides to send their daughter off to boarding school in the United States, where his brother-in-law lives, for reasons with which Dr. Kaiser never fully comes to terms. The most disturbing decision he makes—and possibly what pushed him to send his daughter to boarding school when she needed the love of a parent most—is to become an integral part of a team in the hospital that surgically amputates the hands of convicted thieves.
Saying that he “decided” to become a punishment-surgeon is an interpretive choice, and one that Dr. Kaisar fights throughout the novel. Any time he divulges new details about his work and the circumstances surrounding it, he recites a litany of excuses and justifications.
Indeed, the very first line of the book is, “I did it for the money.” The impact of Dr. Kaisar’s impoverished upbringing lingers in the background of his accounts. Early in the novel, he tells a story of working alongside his father as a teenager to transcribe letters for his wealthier relatives. Working a small side job with his father seems unremarkable, but for Dr. Kaisar, it’s a moment he never forgets. It’s the moment he declares to himself that this was not the type of life he wanted to live, nor was it the type of life he wanted to pass on to his children. This story, alongside other memories, seem formative in his sense of self and what he strives for in life.
Money has its own costs, though. Dr. Kaisar’s retelling of his own story is too fragmented to draw a causal relationship between his upbringing and his later decisions to take the lead on amputating people’s hands, but he leaves enough hints to show how prioritizing wealth corrupted his perception of his life and relationships. In one chilling scene, when Dr. Kaisar imagines telling Sara about the embarrassment and shame he felt watching his father send his wife to the door to receive a debt-collector instead of going himself, he imagines Sara recoiling and curling up in a ball. Noticing her position, Dr. Kaisar immediately tells her she can put her feet down even if she’s cold because the floors in his penthouse are heated. It doesn’t occur to him that she could be curled up in response to the weight of his words—that the feeling of hearing one’s father tell such a vulnerable story could elicit a physical reaction. He’s so attuned to her material needs and comfort—the things he lacked himself as a child—that he reads those needs into every situation, at the expense of recognizing what other emotions Sara might be experiencing, or what else she might need from him as a father.
Tell Her Everything is a layered recital of intricately woven hauntings, decisions, and confessions. It is a story of a man who loves his daughter and wants to provide her with the upbringing he never had; it is a story of a man who is more than complicit in a horrible system of punishment; and it is also a story of how the desire to be a good provider can push one to unspeakable limits—how the shame of transgressing those limits can destroy the very relationships you sacrificed for, in addition to one’s sense of self. This novel presents a series of moral complexities but doesn’t attempt to offer clear answers or settle for easy resolutions—the disquietude is central to its effectiveness. It is also a book that rewards patience. Reading the novel feels like walking into a room mid-conversation, and the conversation continues uninterrupted with your arrival. But if you stick around, you’ll encounter a story that is at once haunting, tender, and gripping.
September 2, 2021
"You are a good man, a very good man: that’s the reason you became a perfect wreck."
Gut wrenching experience. Totally loved the monologues and associated letters.
Highly recommended!
Word of caution: It could get depressing, so lookout for an apt time for reading this.
Gut wrenching experience. Totally loved the monologues and associated letters.
Highly recommended!
Word of caution: It could get depressing, so lookout for an apt time for reading this.
April 20, 2022
A big disappointment. It took me a year to finish it with my patience wearing thin. Epistolary pieces are okay but long gibberish? Nope. The plot had many chances to take off but it stayed stagnant. And why didn't we get more time with Sara?
This is definitely not an easy read.
This is definitely not an easy read.
May 9, 2021
Repetitive, Confusing and Boring.
I was bemused by the quality of the cover on this book, and then I was reminded of the quote, never to judge a book by its cover.
Upon completion of the book, I wondered what was the author, Mirza Waheed, trying to accomplish with this book. Good writing lies in the fact about how a writer impressed his readers with his quality of writing, with his finesse of storytelling, with his expertise in narrative. You can't just make a simple plot turn into a bumpy narrative where half the time the readers have no idea what they are reading, and the rest half readers simply try to piece together the broken narrative so that it makes sense. Also about the repetation, the author was repetitive several times in every chapters, he told the same thing over and over again but with a different selection of words everytime.
This book is a complete letdown. The only good thing about it is the cover.
I was bemused by the quality of the cover on this book, and then I was reminded of the quote, never to judge a book by its cover.
Upon completion of the book, I wondered what was the author, Mirza Waheed, trying to accomplish with this book. Good writing lies in the fact about how a writer impressed his readers with his quality of writing, with his finesse of storytelling, with his expertise in narrative. You can't just make a simple plot turn into a bumpy narrative where half the time the readers have no idea what they are reading, and the rest half readers simply try to piece together the broken narrative so that it makes sense. Also about the repetation, the author was repetitive several times in every chapters, he told the same thing over and over again but with a different selection of words everytime.
This book is a complete letdown. The only good thing about it is the cover.
August 15, 2019
Started this book without reading the blurb or any of the reviews. Nothing prepared me for the slow unfolding and the creeping terror. Perhaps, that is also how unspeakable violence becomes just another day job in real life.
August 31, 2021
A very convoluted, confusing and melancholic tale told in the first person narrative and via letters. The story of an Indian doctor abroad, in a country where punishment is physical..and the story.of his estrangement from his near and dear .
Was a rushed read , and a mildly repulsive one..
Was a rushed read , and a mildly repulsive one..
December 31, 2019
Did not expect a book that is mostly a monologue of a father addressing his daughter ( interspersed with a letter from her) to have such an impact.
Beautifully written and easy to read, but I ended up putting it down a number of times as the slow horror disturbed me so badly.
Beautifully written and easy to read, but I ended up putting it down a number of times as the slow horror disturbed me so badly.
March 21, 2020
Tell Her Everything is a fantastic anatomy of fatherhood, for from the opening till the last word of the book, the narrator, Dr Kaiser, tries his maximum best to be candid with his daughter, Sara and in the true spirit of the title tells her everything. The book might be handy to those who want to understand the pros and cons of filial bond. While reading the last pages of this wonderful book, some pressing questions propped up in my mind and I would like to enlist them to my avid readers.
Do parents today engage with their kids in such a wonderful way? What do parents tell their kids? How does this book be a useful template for a successful family system?
Deserves to score 5 stars!
Do parents today engage with their kids in such a wonderful way? What do parents tell their kids? How does this book be a useful template for a successful family system?
Deserves to score 5 stars!
May 31, 2022
DNF after almost 60 percent of the book.
April 13, 2020
I had to close my eyes and take a few deep breaths after this. It cut too close to the bone. The ambitions and failings of Dr. K, the pain he holds and the pain he caused, they all fold into each other in a quietly devastating exploration of our moral codes.
Having grown up in Saudi Arabia, the complexities of immigrant life resonated with uncomfortable incisiveness. The idea that I have certainly lived beside people such as the ones in this book is a reality that this book brings home in searing form. At times, the informality of the prose-conversation detracts from its contents, but that is a minor quibble. Given the turns of our world, this is a haunting read for any one of us.
Having grown up in Saudi Arabia, the complexities of immigrant life resonated with uncomfortable incisiveness. The idea that I have certainly lived beside people such as the ones in this book is a reality that this book brings home in searing form. At times, the informality of the prose-conversation detracts from its contents, but that is a minor quibble. Given the turns of our world, this is a haunting read for any one of us.
February 20, 2023
Waheed's novel is an interesting exploration of complicity, parental guilt, isolation, and migration. His characters lose each other not just over time, but also geographical space as they move from one location to the next for the purposes of work, or exile. What will stand out to any philosophy lover is the novel's contention with culpability, particularly in the domain of biomedical ethics. Are you complicit if you simply follow an order under authority, or does complicity necessitate active moral belief in the authority's rationale?
Adding to this ethical dilemma is the protagonist's complicated relationship with his daughter, who's estranged to him and is the "her" referred to in the title. The novel, which is written in confessional form, dances between the narrator's confessions and his daughter's letter to him. The wonderful yet perplexing thing is the characters don't meet even once during the novel, so both the confesser and the confessed-to remain separated from one another.
Although a bit long-winded and sometimes frustrating (because you don't understand what the morally dubious job is that Waheed's protagonist does), this is a solid read for anyone looking for a simple story written beautifully.
Adding to this ethical dilemma is the protagonist's complicated relationship with his daughter, who's estranged to him and is the "her" referred to in the title. The novel, which is written in confessional form, dances between the narrator's confessions and his daughter's letter to him. The wonderful yet perplexing thing is the characters don't meet even once during the novel, so both the confesser and the confessed-to remain separated from one another.
Although a bit long-winded and sometimes frustrating (because you don't understand what the morally dubious job is that Waheed's protagonist does), this is a solid read for anyone looking for a simple story written beautifully.
March 19, 2022
Tell Her Everything by Mirza Waheed is a tale of a father and his daughter dealing with different challenges unknown to the other. Oftentimes in life we feel our struggles are so much more than is seen by the naked eye and other's struggles are so much less than is seen by us. The story is majorly about a father, a surgeon in London, thinking out loud about his entire life that he will share with his daughter when she comes to visit him from America. The father who was new to the country, somehow had gotten involved in a job which was not only not in his contract but also far from his conscience. He tells himself that it is time to finally tell her everything. The daughter who lost her mother at a young age is sent to a boarding school shares her side of hurdles through a few letters to his father.
The book covers various sensitive topics, some in glimpses, some in depth like immigrants, poverty, religion, patriarchy, girl child, and grief. A beautiful story with emotions that are bound to stay with you
The book covers various sensitive topics, some in glimpses, some in depth like immigrants, poverty, religion, patriarchy, girl child, and grief. A beautiful story with emotions that are bound to stay with you
October 24, 2019
The book is mostly a Monologue of a father, who is waiting for his estra daughter to come home. He wants to confess about something he has done. The protoganist Kaiser or Dr K is an Indian doctor who is in a gulf country. He talks about the his life of poverty in India, his studies in England and then life with his family. After his wife's death Kaiser sends his daughter off to boarding school and they have never done a heart to heart after that. Here Kaiser tries to decide on what to tell her. There are few chapters which has letters from the daughter, where she talks about how she felt
.
At times Dr K did grate on my nerves, coz he kept saying the same thing again and again After sometime I could guess what he was talking about, but I'm still not able to decide whether it was right or wrong? He was wrong to abandon his daughter though
.
At times Dr K did grate on my nerves, coz he kept saying the same thing again and again After sometime I could guess what he was talking about, but I'm still not able to decide whether it was right or wrong? He was wrong to abandon his daughter though
September 17, 2021
A somewhat repetitive, but powerful read!
Rating: 3.5/5
"The past remains with you, no matter what. It's silly when people say, oh, the past catches up with you, it haunts you, and so on. I've always carried it with me. It's here, there, everywhere... under my very skin."
There's a lot to say about this book, and yet, it seems that words would not be enough. A confessional ride of a medical practitioner in an unnamed country; it was- although certainly not the best novel I have read- a hooking read.
The monologue was at times repetitive, and yet, the dark side of the profession and the moral dilemma faced by the protagonist, Dr. Kaiser, was intriguing. It certainly leaves the readers pondering a lot about the penal system and prescribed punishments for convicts in certain countries that are arguably inhumane. A powerful story!
Rating: 3.5/5
"The past remains with you, no matter what. It's silly when people say, oh, the past catches up with you, it haunts you, and so on. I've always carried it with me. It's here, there, everywhere... under my very skin."
There's a lot to say about this book, and yet, it seems that words would not be enough. A confessional ride of a medical practitioner in an unnamed country; it was- although certainly not the best novel I have read- a hooking read.
The monologue was at times repetitive, and yet, the dark side of the profession and the moral dilemma faced by the protagonist, Dr. Kaiser, was intriguing. It certainly leaves the readers pondering a lot about the penal system and prescribed punishments for convicts in certain countries that are arguably inhumane. A powerful story!
February 2, 2021
"You made decisions, and decisions involve volition. An exercise of the will. Acting upon the will of the mind. And on all those counts, you are as culpable as any man living or dead, now or in history. In the dark days of yore, or amid the silicon sparkle of our modern times."
Waheed's is a haunting tale that puts you through a deep and thorough introspective inquiry about accountability for your actions and choices that you make for yourself and in turn for the people around you. The text is a meditation on absences/presences, filial and professional ethics, and the cosmically unresolved dilemma between fate and free will.
You'll find yourself drawn in, biting your nails alongside Kaiser, moving back and forth in memory capsules, wanting to tell Sara everything...
Waheed's is a haunting tale that puts you through a deep and thorough introspective inquiry about accountability for your actions and choices that you make for yourself and in turn for the people around you. The text is a meditation on absences/presences, filial and professional ethics, and the cosmically unresolved dilemma between fate and free will.
You'll find yourself drawn in, biting your nails alongside Kaiser, moving back and forth in memory capsules, wanting to tell Sara everything...
May 2, 2020
A story of a man walking on thread, making decisions while he keeps reassuring to himself that what he did was the best possible thing he could have done given the circumstances.
A father nearing his death repents sending his daughter way from him after his wife passes away. Why? He is a doctor, other than saving lives part of his job is to assist in corporal punishments. The premise is strong and important. Questions the morality, is it right to do this because at least you can help ease the pain (even though the concept of the entire thing is inhumane)? Do you draw the line when someone you know is at the receiving end?
My expectation were so high from the book but I feel underwhelmed. I expected more depth with respect to his line of duty and his relationship with his daughter.
A father nearing his death repents sending his daughter way from him after his wife passes away. Why? He is a doctor, other than saving lives part of his job is to assist in corporal punishments. The premise is strong and important. Questions the morality, is it right to do this because at least you can help ease the pain (even though the concept of the entire thing is inhumane)? Do you draw the line when someone you know is at the receiving end?
My expectation were so high from the book but I feel underwhelmed. I expected more depth with respect to his line of duty and his relationship with his daughter.
June 2, 2021
Tell Her Every Thing is an extraordinary anatomy of fatherhood.
Dr. Kaiser , waiting for his daughter Sara to visit him. He wants to confess to her about something he has done.
He addresses her and in actual sense tells her everything. Everything about his life as a punishment doctor, a husband , a father , and a son. It even focuses on the harsh reality of racism and difficulties that immigrants go through.
An Aptly written and executed book with the power to give you imagination of pain and loss. One needs to be have patience while reading it.
Dr. Kaiser , waiting for his daughter Sara to visit him. He wants to confess to her about something he has done.
He addresses her and in actual sense tells her everything. Everything about his life as a punishment doctor, a husband , a father , and a son. It even focuses on the harsh reality of racism and difficulties that immigrants go through.
An Aptly written and executed book with the power to give you imagination of pain and loss. One needs to be have patience while reading it.
May 6, 2021
Every girl who once loved her father in childhood and had to dislike him in the end due to his deeds will connect to this story. It illustrates the truth of life, which is not everything can be purchased with money. Some fathers feel that they are performing their duties by providing good financial support to their family, but, what they forget in the process is that emotional support, honesty, love and care is all that keeps a family together.
November 21, 2023
I didn't read the back of the book before picking this up. Its simple, beautiful and profound in how it touches on filial relationships, on what a person does to come to terms with regrets. Every line of this book had me engaged, perhaps because it hit close to home. It explained away point-of-views and compliance with values/norms you do not agree with such.. tenderness.. and such specificity to south asian culture.. It will stay on my books-that-changed-my-perspective list for sometime.
February 5, 2020
The built up was amazing and kept me thinking what it’s about another thing which was interesting was the daughters point of view presented along but eventually it seemed really stretched and a very old theme which one had read before so there was nothing new and refreshing and the end turned out to be pretty lame so this book didn’t do anything for me.
April 14, 2020
Merits your time
I found it , like a veil yet to be raised till the end, but not much to my awe as the conversation is so simply grabbing that already made my leisure pursuit worthy from the very beginning.A very originally apt write that can easily create imagaries of untenable loss, struggle in mind , sobering recollection and hope.
I found it , like a veil yet to be raised till the end, but not much to my awe as the conversation is so simply grabbing that already made my leisure pursuit worthy from the very beginning.A very originally apt write that can easily create imagaries of untenable loss, struggle in mind , sobering recollection and hope.
October 23, 2021
I think this novel is quite boring. The story is about an immigrat thinking out loud about what he is going to tell his daughter about his life and the things that he did. It is somewhat similar to the novel written by Bano Qudsia "Hasil Ghaat, حاصل گھاٹ". But this story lacks the charisma that keeps the readers hooked. The plot of the story lacked details.
March 5, 2023
3.5 stars. Some parts felt dragged out but I do believe it was done purposely as the narrator clearly doesn’t want to confess to his daughter. What I did love about it was the conversation about the death penalty & the barbaric ways we seek “justice”, the lines that get blurred, medical professionals that oversee it, how things become normalized. Very thought provoking.
April 16, 2023
Lots of build up for not much at the end. The dad and daughter have different definitions of how the daughter should’ve been best supported, which I relate to. But the father doctor went on and on about what he did and needed to explain himself and then… no big realizations!! It was disappointing. Not recommended.
March 5, 2025
This was a bit of hard book to finish
It dragged and literally had no ending
The main character was so self absorbed into his own story that the point of telling her never happened
The portions of the girl speaking were more enjoyable to read than the rest of the book.
Not a book I would recommend
It dragged and literally had no ending
The main character was so self absorbed into his own story that the point of telling her never happened
The portions of the girl speaking were more enjoyable to read than the rest of the book.
Not a book I would recommend
June 1, 2021
Tell her everything by Mirza Waheed is a nice book. A father who is impatient to tell everything to his daughter whom he had sent away when she was a kid after her mother passes away. This book also reveals some harsh things an immigrant has to go through.
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