Fiction review: Secret Son and The Weight of Heaven

FICTION

Two new novels set in the developing world seek to explain social ills in human terms and to make subtle statements on the way to future human progress. As works of social commentary, these novels are quite successful in presenting ideas in an emotionally compelling way without sacrificing values of storytelling or character development.

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Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American writer and college professor. "Secret Son" is the story of Youssef El-Mekki, a 19-year-old youth living in a Moroccan slum with his world-weary, embittered mother.

Youssef discovers one day that his father, whom he has always believed dead, is very much alive, a wealthy bureaucrat in the corrupt government. Youssef also has a half sister his own age, a girl he has never met.

Stunned by his brightening prospects, he leaves his mother behind and assumes a life of luxury and hope. But then an abrupt reversal of fortune sends him back to the streets. His sense of betrayal risks pushing him into involvement with The Party, a fringe Islamic group that promises to right the wrongs of Moroccan society by any means necessary.

Lalami writes with restraint but with great perceptiveness. In our world, bitterness leads to desperation. Youssef's world is no different. Lalami takes us on a journey of understanding to a place that is a darker version of the world we live in: divided by class, politics and religion.

Are our personal and family hurts and humiliations acted out on the public stage? Certainly they are, and the Islamic world is no different in this. There are passages in this book that become painful to read. There is nothing more painful in life than missed opportunities, misunderstandings, and wrong choices taken back too late. Any novel that focuses on social and political realities risks lapsing into a sort of diatribe-by-cartoon-character. This is not that book. It is more graceful, a meditation on the meaning of the saddest word ever spoken, "regret."

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Thrity Umrigar is an Indian-American college professor who draws on a 17-year journalism career in her fiction. "The Weight of Heaven" involves an American couple who are heartbroken after the death of their young son.

Frank and Ellie Benton seek forgetfulness in a job offer in India, but their inner demons are not left behind. The reader at first wonders if this will be bearable to read, but the tension never becomes unendurable.

We learn the backstory of their courtship, how they lost their son, their individual reactions and the shared trajectory of their marriage. There are hopeful times of reconciliation and renewal, but Frank forms an ominous bond with Ramesh, the young son of their Indian housekeepers, perhaps seeking to replace their own lost child. There is a danger that this relationship, which Frank leans on as a crutch, may end in the destruction of more lives than just his own.

Umrigar's book differs from Lalami's in one critical area: the lead characters are Americans. Perhaps she felt that American readers would demand that. Other than that one difference, the books share nearly everything. There is a fascination with human nature. Both make strong efforts to explore the realities of poverty and corruption in the developing world. Both are written by women who appear to be well-informed about the differences between our nation and others that lack our wealth and economic opportunity but who also understand the universality of the human experience, and especially family life.

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The key shared element of the two novels may in fact be their portrayal of human happiness as a function of family life. By pursuing that concept with passion and insight, both women carry us to a distant place without forfeiting our fascination with their story line or our willingness to accept the lessons that they impart.

We should recall how effective Harper Lee was in teaching moral lessons in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Rather than reading dry nonfiction books on the down side of globalization, the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism, the role of corruption in the political failures of other nations, or the psychology of bereavement and recovery, we follow these absorbing stories to their inevitable destinations. Despite the pain and heartache, we count ourselves fortunate.

Chris Wiegard is senior librarian at Appomattox Regional Library in Hopewell.