When Isma Pasha and Eamonn Lone meet in a Massachusetts coffee bar, they are both far from home but have plenty in common. They are both Asian British with homes in North London, but their circumstances differ.
Isma’s a marked woman. Just getting into the USA to do a PhD was problematic, as her father was a jihadi involved in worldwide campaigns before dying in captivity on his way to Guantanamo Bay. He prioritised the fight ahead of his family, leaving Isma with few memories, none good, of him but many of her long-suffering, now deceased, mother. Her younger siblings, twins Aneeka and Parvaiz, never knew their father.
Eamonn’s father, by contrast, is Karamat Lone, poster boy Home Secretary in the UK Government who has made a career of embracing his Britishness. Eamonn is in the US, his entry presumably unproblematic, to visit the family of his mother, a successful Irish-American businesswoman, and, as is his wont, to enjoy himself.
Isma and Eamonn get on but their differences prevent any intimacy, not least because Isma knows, but does not tell, that her brother Parvaiz has gone off to join Isis. Later, back in London, Eamonn tries his luck with the younger, more attractive, sister, Aneeka. After an initial rebuff, she comes on to him. He does not question her change of heart.
The story switches to Parvaiz to give an account of his radicalisation, flight to Isis, and life in Raqqa, where reality begins to bite. And reality starts to bite in London too, boding ill for Aneeka and Eamonn, and worse for Home Secretary, Karamat Lone. Difficult choices have to be made, with lives at risk, careers at stake, and love exerting its painful pull.
Tightly written at
under three hundred pages, Isma, Eamonn, Parvaiz, Aneeka and Karamat
sequentially narrate events and give voice to their conflicting loyalties. The
different perspectives are well balanced and give insights that must resonate
within the British Asian community.
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