There has been debate lately about whether novels should cater for our cauterised attention spans. If that means narratives constructed in short chunks that can be consumed in five-minute bursts on a phone – intelligent, but with plenty of cliffhangers and well-timed packets of information to keep us coming back – then Good People ticks all the boxes.
Patmeena Sabit’s debut is constructed from a chorus of short testimonies – none more than a few pages, some just a few lines – about the death of Zorah Sharaf, an Afghan American teenager who has drowned in a canal at the wheel of the family car. We hear from family, friends and those in the wider community – neighbours, teachers, schoolmates, journalists, the guy who found the body – as well as those involved in the investigation (though very little from the police), and bites of media commentary. A picture slowly forms of a devastated family, but what kind of family was it? Versions are multiple and contradictory. The Sharafs are perfect, loving, tight-knit. They are dangerously dysfunctional.
The novel is, in essence, a crime mystery in which a community turns detective and puts a grieving family on trial. It is also a sharp portrait of an immigrant community in the modern United States, an anatomy of poisonous gossip and a commentary on wider societal divisions. Most of all, though, it is awfully addictive.
We learn, from all these snappy voices and snippets, that Zorah’s parents, Rahmat and Maryam, arrived in the US from Kabul in the late 1990s with nothing. They had four children: Zorah, her older brother, and two much younger siblings. Rahmat worked night and day, and weathered several business failures before his cleaning enterprise took off. He is now a multimillionaire entrepreneur in international imports and fast food franchises; they are living the American dream in an upmarket Virginia neighbourhood. But success sparks envy, and money cannot erase cultural tensions. It is not simple for these devoted, obsessive parents to honour their community, culture and values while raising modern American teenagers who will fit in at high school, and – most importantly – Ivy League colleges.
Some of the narrative voices return repeatedly, but they never fully individuate – that isn’t the point. Their heft is collective. They sway us this way and that, presenting new information, judgments, contradictions, hints, revelations, questions and, of course, verdicts. The Sharafs are kind, supportive parents. No, they are harsh and punitive – basically child abusers. Zorah’s big brother was her best friend. No, he was a weirdo, a loner, her worst enemy. Everyone agrees that Zorah was beautiful, smart and popular; her girlfriends were always welcomed in the Sharaf household for sleepovers. But Zorah was never allowed to sleep at their houses, or go to parties, or on school trips, or to spend time with, let alone date, boys. The cultural dissonance builds, as does the pressure. Zorah starts skipping high school, faking report cards. Then she meets an unsuitable boy.
We never hear directly from Zorah, her parents or siblings, but they begin to feel very real as we see their love for one another, their courage and resilience, as well as their fears and tensions. The narrative device allows Sabit to manipulate the reader wildly: a contradiction is timed to destabilise, a new perspective brings whiplash and we become complicit because we too pass judgment, piece half facts together, suspect, critique – condemn. But there are also times when the form is overstretched. Do we really need so much from a forensic meteorologist on Fulton County rainfall, a road safety specialist explaining the danger of hydroplaning or the Speedy Stop gas attendant?
The most intriguing thing about Good People is not its polyphonic structure but the growing sense of an organising consciousness reeling back and forth between loving loyalty and rage: love for the complex Afghan community that is capable of generosity, care and support; fury at the judgment and misogyny, the violence, the absolutism. This fluctuating energy is compelling because it feels entirely true.
How did Zorah end up in the canal? Did the Mercedes spin out of control on a wet road at night? Or is this something heinous, a so-called “honour killing”, father or brother – or maybe a jealous member of the Afghan community – punishing a young woman for stepping out of her box? Sabit toys with us, shoving us this way and that until the need for an answer feels really urgent. Gratification, however, is elusive. What follows is a mild deflation.
Good People’s structure is both its strength and its greatest limitation. The narrative feeds us, morsel after morsel, so we never have to work too hard; and while there is stimulating cultural commentary, the structure prevents any deeper emotional, interior journey of character. I wolfed down Good People in two sittings. It kept me stimulated, educated and definitely not bored, though not really nourished either – but that, of course, is how we live now. People, good and bad, are going to love it.
• Good People by Patmeena Sabit is published by Virago (£16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
