Published in 2022, this is by Karachi-born Pakistani/British novelist Kamila Shamsie; it came to my attention via an article by Lyn Dickens in The Conversation; and my audio-version was very capably read by Tania Rodrigues.

It's very much a novel of two parts. We kick off in the Karachi of 1988; friends Maryam and Zahra are 14, coming to terms with changing bodies and changing roles; and two events -- the death of Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq, followed by the election of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto -- are sending shock waves through society.

This part of the book is very vivid. We see how the autocratic government instilled fear in the populace; we observe the power of those who have wealth and solid connections, with "fixers" at their disposal; we grow to understand the undercurrent of violence that swirls around society; and we witness the wild enthusiasm that greeted Benazir's election. Shamsie testifies in interviews to the huge influence this event had on her, and on the story: "It was the most beautiful time to be young and to be a girl... Power looked so male. And then, [the characters] had this moment of realizing, actually, it can be female." But there are two kickers here: Firstly, what does it mean to be a woman and powerful? And secondly, how deep does the change go? Both elements are explored in the course of the book.

Complementing this socio-political strand, we have a clever portrayal of a friendship. It's not Ferrante or Rooney, but it's subtle and thought-provoking.

The pivotal event of the book occurs in the Karachi section. Maryam, vaguely dating Hammad, an older schoolboy, acquiesces to his suggestion that they abandon the party they are attending, and go for a drive. Zahra, fearing reputational damage to Maryam, initially tries to scotch this idea. But then, driven by some inner blend of curiosity and daring, Zahra is the one who proceeds when Maryam is ready to back out. Trouble is, the car in which this joyride is to take place is piloted by Jimmy, who is a good bit older than Hammad, and not at all under his control. Jimmy is a leering sleazeball, who drives dangerously, stops to pick up some mysterious kit (guns?), and goes all out to make sure the two 14-year-olds are painfully aware of what might befall them in this situation. In the end, fear is all they have to suffer, but the incident marks the rest of their lives. Its practical consequences are that Maryam, now a disappointment to the grandfather whose leather business she was to inherit, is shipped off to boarding school in England. Its psychological consequences equate to an enduring memory of vulnerability and humiliation. However much power might have shifted in Pakistan at that point, it has not shifted in favour of two young women caught in a firestorm of potential violence, reputational constraints, and systemic sexism.

So far, so good. Interesting.

Then we fast-forward 30 years to the friends' high-profile lives in London.



We're brought up to speed on the women's trajectory by a couple of bits of pseudo-journalism, which do come across as a bit clunky (Lorraine Berry calls this manoeuvre "a jarring gimmick"). Maryam is now a successful businesswoman (a venture capitalist). She has few scruples, successfully buries inconvenient obstacles, and unabashedly uses her powerful connections to forge links with government. Zahra is a barrister and civil rights activist. She has her wilful side (sexually speaking), but her public persona radiates integrity, honesty, compassion, and fearlessness.

Until, that is, Hammad and Jimmy resurface. Jimmy, still the unreconstructed male, tries to pressure Zahra into supporting his application for "indefinite leave to remain" (ILR) in Britain. His lewd threats (building on Zahra's somewhat surprising recent fling with Hammad) bring back all the terror of the post-party drive. She tells Maryam, who decides -- and this time will not be thwarted -- to fix things.

Of course, self-righteous Zahra doesn't like Maryam's solution (Jimmy is deported on account of a minor misdemeanour committed several years ago, which is brought to light by the highly dubious use of the facial recognition software that one of Maryam's ventures has championed).

And so there's a big bust-up between the women. In a Ferrante-reminiscent outburst, Zahra tells Maryam: "A part of me has always hated you."



I would agree with Berry, and with Aliya Farrukh Shaikh, and with Toby Lichtig, that the first section, the one set in Pakistan, is way more effective than the second.

Berry argues, however, that the reappearance of Hammad and Jimmy is "a pure plot device requiring both women to act in ways that feel contrary to everything we know about them". Farrukh also maintains: "Shamsie’s portrayal of the episode with Jimmy isn’t convincing enough to make it believable that Maryam and Zara are still clutching on to it after three decades." And for Lichtig: "The characters have a maddening habit of reflecting on past events as if they happened 30 pages, rather than 30 years, ago."

I disagree. Scenes of fear and/or humiliation can linger with us long after we've ostensibly "got over" them, or gained the power to deal with them. Under pressure from bad memories, we very often revert to behaviour that we should have outgrown.

In fact, the psychological ramifications of That Night are very interesting. Maryam was always the imperious one of the pair, used to getting her own way, and ready to apply her grandfather's influence to the task of taking revenge on Jimmy back in their teens. But she is the one who is punished for the whole escapade. She refuses to shop Zahra because she is very loyal, and doesn't want to see her friend's university scholarship dreams wrecked. Because of her early banishment (which she very much resents), Maryam's already innate hardness has come to verge on the ruthless. Zahra, on the other hand, having got away with her part in the "abduction", has learnt to be sanctimonious... In a similar divergence, the feeling of utter powerlessness experienced during that event makes Maryam determined to wield enough power to frighten the people who try to frighten her. The same feeling makes Zahra determined to ensure that others will not suffer a similar sense of powerlessness. But Zahra has a dark streak. She avoids responsibility. She ducked out of assuming any blame for the car saga (and stood by while unjustified praise was heaped on her for being a loyal and protective friend); she also avoided telling Maryam about her attraction to Hammad, either then or now. And she does, after all, tell Maryam about the older, vulnerable, ILR-seeking Jimmy, although she must have known at some level that Maryam would act on this knowledge in order to protect her.

Eventually -- and this is her moment of growth -- Zahra does take responsibility, resigning from her civil liberties role (even while Maryam, true to her fix-it form, tells her that no-one need ever know about the whole Jimmy deportation saga).

I don't find anything unbelievable or strained about this aspect of the story arc.



I also appreciated the novel's scathing critique of contemporary British politics and society. Indeed, it's hard to know what causes the greatest (because most believable) cringe. The government, with its blatant hostility to immigrants, and its shameless embrace of cash-for-influence? The sleazy prime minister? The racists who brazenly act as agents provocateurs? The fickleness of social media outrage? The British authorities like to imagine their nation as a beacon of democracy, but Shamsie, remembering some of the characteristics of authoritarian rule, warns us that it's easy to be way too complacent.

Ferrante it's not -- but it's not supposed to be. As Shamsie herself says: "I love the Elena Ferrante novels, but what also happens with stories of female friendships is they often end up being about sexual jealousy. I play with that idea in the novel’s first half, but move away from it because that’s not been my experience of friendship. I wanted to write against -- I’m not saying write against Ferrante, who is brilliant -- but write against the trope that dramatic tension in female friendships has to arise from sexual jealousy." As I've already argued, the psychological tension Shamsie creates is indeed compelling.

The two questions raised by the book -- about women and power, and about the depth of a democratic "spring" -- are also afforded an intelligent discussion. Both attempts at answers reference systemic lag. Shamsie clearly shows us the obdurate persistence not only of paternalism, but also of classist entitlement (the harsh reality that "privilege recognizes privilege"); she illustrates not only the rapidity with which young democratic hopes can be dashed by endemic evils such as corruption, but also the insidious erosion of old democratic values at the hands of ancient prejudices.



But it's a cluttered book. I'm not sure we needed so much about either character's private life. I found the detail distracting.

And -- though I'm not normally a critic of ambiguous endings -- I would have liked something a bit less opaque here. We close in 2020, and we see Maryam and Zahra together. But, having (accidentally?) converged, they're together only in the together way of covid times -- on parallel tracks, and at a distance. We don't hear them relating -- "There was nothing to say, and nowhere else to be" -- but at least they're occupying the same space...

Notwithstanding these misgivings, Shamsie is worth looking out for in the future. Politically, she has shown herself to be very, very astute.