A Review of Bina Shah’s Before She Sleeps (Delphinium 2018)

[xiomara]

A Review of Bina Shah’s Before She Sleeps (Delphinium 2018)
by Stephen Hong Sohn



There’s much to praise concerning Bina Shah’s second novel Before She Sleeps (Delphinium 2018), which sets us up in a dystopian world in which the gender ratio between men and women has become highly unbalanced due to a virus that is more destructive to women than men. Let’s let B&N give us some more context:

“In modern, beautiful Green City, the capital of South West Asia, gender selection, war and disease have brought the ratio of men to women to alarmingly low levels. The government uses terror and technology to control its people, and women must take multiple husbands to have children as quickly as possible. Yet there are women who resist, women who live in an underground collective and refuse to be part of the system. Secretly protected by the highest echelons of power, they emerge only at night, to provide to the rich and elite of Green City a type of commodity that nobody can buy: intimacy without sex. As it turns out, not even the most influential men can shield them from discovery and the dangers of ruthless punishment. This dystopian novel from one of Pakistan’s most talented writers is a modern-day parable, The Handmaid’s Tale about women’s lives in repressive Muslim countries everywhere. It takes the patriarchal practices of female seclusion and veiling, gender selection, and control over women’s bodies, amplifies and distorts them in a truly terrifying way to imagine a world of post-religious authoritarianism.”

This description does a great job of providing us some basics, but doesn’t elucidate Shah’s complicated use of narrative discourse, as there are a mixture of different narrative perspectives and approaches to storytelling (including notes from a character’s journal/ diary). Our ostensible hero is a woman by the name of Sabine, who is part of the Panah, the secret society of women who provide “intimacy without sex.” Sabine isn’t really all that interested in the work, but the Panah is the closest thing she has to a home. Lin, the den mother of the women, provides them with the rules and the policies they must abide by in order to survive, but all is not perfectly well in the Panah. There is some dissension among the ranks; some like Rupa actually want to have more intimate relationships with their male customers, such as the prospect of falling in love with a man. But these sorts of violations are dangerous, as the women of the Panah cannot ever live a life in Green City nor can they take a man into their secret society. The plot moves into high gear once Sabine does not return from one of her routine visits with a client. Using her contacts, Lin is able to send one of her clients (a stern and calculating man by the name of Faro) to go after Sabine and to find out what has happened to her. However, Faro can only do so much, as he must still abide by the rules of Green City, while he attempts to help Sabine. But once Sabine appears on the radar of Green City occupants, including a doctor named Julien Asfour and a colleague named Bouthain, the situation becomes far more complicated. Can Sabine even be returned to the Panah? This question is the one that drives the plot toward its complicated conclusion. While Shah’s work is certainly a riff off of novels like The Handmaid’s Tale, she’s obviously working with different cultural contexts, involving South Asia and the Middle East. Given the rise of global feminisms, this novel comes at perhaps the perfect time to bring up larger questions about women’s agency. What was questionable to me was the compulsory heterosexuality at play in the novel, something that only comes under question once when it is suggested that Bouthain might actually have sexual desires for Julien. Indeed, I wondered more largely about any queer attachments in this future, which is so reliant upon the reproductive capacities of women. Do queer relationships exist at all? How would they be regulated? In any case, these questions aside: the novel’s world-building was certainly immersive and fans of speculative fiction will have quite a lot to mull over; this novel would also make an excellent addition to a postcolonial literature course, perhaps a novel to be taught in conjunction with something like Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome.

Buy the Book Here!

Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Xiomara Forbez

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don't hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Xiomara Forbez, PhD Candidate in Critical Dance Studies, at xforb001@ucr.edu.

 

A Review of Sylv Chiang (author) and Connie Choi’s (illustrator) Tournament Trouble (Annick Press, 2

[xiomara]

A Review of Sylv Chiang (author) and Connie Choi’s (illustrator) Tournament Trouble (Annick Press, 2017).

by Stephen Hong Sohn

The writer and illustrator duo, Sylv Chiang and Connie Choi, bring us a fun debut with Tournament Trouble (Annick Press, 2018), which is the first in the Cross Ups series. Let’s let B&N do some setting up for us:

“All twelve-year-old Jaden wants to do is be the best at Cross Ups, the video game he and his friends can’t stop playing. He knows he could be—if only he didn’t have to hide his gaming from his mom, who’s convinced it will make him violent. After an epic match leads to an invitation to play in a top tournament, Jaden and his friends Devesh and Hugh hatch a plan to get him there. But Jaden’s strict parents and annoying siblings, not to mention a couple of bullies and his confusing feelings for his next-door neighbor Cali, keep getting in the way! Tournament Trouble marks the first book in a planned series by Sylv Chiang, a captivating new voice in middle reader fiction. With sharp dialogue and relatable characters, it chronicles the ups and downs of middle school with a relevant, contemporary twist. Accompanied by Connie Choi’s lively illustrations, Tournament Trouble invites readers into Jaden’s world, and will leave them eagerly awaiting his next adventure.”

So, there generally aren’t as many middle grade offerings, which makes Tournament Trouble a particularly welcome addition to the Asian American fictional archive. What I loved the most about the novel is that the general premise revolves around a fighting game. Growing up (and how old I feel now writing this statement), I recall many days that I spent playing games like Streetfighter and Mortal Kombat, which are just like Cross Ups. You basically pick a character who has particular combos that can activate special powers or moves, and your ultimate goal is to run down the hitpoint bar of your opponent. Typically, these games were played in real time in co-op mode, where you were either in an arcade or using controllers. These days, such games can also be played online, which allows a level of anonymity in terms of your opponents, which is part of the novel’s opening gambit. When Jaden is invited to participate in the local tournament, his registration is covered by a mysterious player of Cross Ups that Jaden has beaten. You can’t help but wonder who this person actually is, and the reveal was definitely a surprise for me. But Jaden’s mother does not want Jaden playing Cross Ups at all, so he has to find a way to get into the tournament without her knowing about it. Jaden’s mother is a character that also undergoes some development, as readers eventually discover why it is that she is so opposed to Jaden playing this particular game. The other complicated element of this novel relates to Cali’s subplot; her mother suffers from a degenerative condition, which makes it difficult for her to care for Cali, especially when she lands in the hospital. Jaden’s deep friendship with Cali spurs him to find a way to make it so that Cali can remain living where she is; this connection is undoubtedly heartwarming. Choi’s manga-like drawings were the proper aesthetic accompaniment to this plot, and readers of all ages should be delighted to know that Cross Ups part 2 is already coming out this Fall!

Buy the Book Here!

Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Xiomara Forbez

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don't hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Xiomara Forbez, PhD Candidate in Critical Dance Studies, at xforb001@ucr.edu.