Lone Star Book Blog Tour: The Black-Marketer’s Daughter by Suman Mallick (Review)

Zuleikha arrives in the US from Lahore, Pakistan, by marriage, having trained as a pianist without ever owning a real piano. Now she finally has one-a wedding present from her husband-but nevertheless finds it difficult to get used to her new role of a suburban middle-class housewife who has an abundance of time to play it.

Haunted by the imaginary worlds of the confiscated contraband books and movies that her father trafficked in to pay for her education and her dowry, and unable to reconcile them with the expectations of the real world of her present, she ends up as the central figure in a scandal that catapults her into the public eye and plays out in equal measures in the local news and in backroom deliberations, all fueled by winds of anti-Muslim hysteria.

The Black-Marketer’s Daughter was a finalist for the Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize, and praised by the jury as a “complicated and compelling story” of our times, with two key cornerstones of the novel being the unsympathetic voice with which Mallick, almost objectively, relays catastrophic and deeply emotional events, and the unsparing eye with which he illuminates the different angles and conflicting interests at work in a complex situation. The cumulative effects, while deliberately unsettling to readers, nevertheless keeps them glued to the pages out of sheer curiosity about what will happen next.

“But whenever you talk about leaving things better for your kids, you have to define what’s better, don’t you?”

The Black-Marketer’s Daughter is Suman Mallick’s interesting and thoughtful debut novel about the luxury of having the freedom of choice in the United States, even for women born in a different country and still expected to live under their homeland’s customs and restrictions. Pakistani-born Zuleikha lives in Irving, Texas, with her American husband, Iskander Khan. While the marriage was arranged, they get along fairly well and soon have a son, Wasim. When Zuleikha was growing up in Pakistan, her father pushed goods through the black market, which is how he no doubt obtained the Casio keyboard for his daughter to develop her piano skills. At their new home in Texas, Iskander buys Zuleikha a better piano as a wedding present, maybe out of love but more likely out of a sense of fulfilling his duty as a dutiful husband. Iskander is a good provider and does what he feels is right to maintain a stable relationship and a harmonious household, but he fails to consider his wife’s actual feelings and dreams.

Zuleikha’s first foray into independence occurs when she offers piano lessons to children. Her skills open the door to a full-time job and the door to life-changing events that will shake the very foundation of her secure and protected life. This story highlights the struggle of being under the thumb of a culture that allows few freedoms for women and even fewer opportunities to explore the desire for a life filled with more prerogatives, power, and choices.

Mallick’s writing oscillates between offering straightforward description and diving deep into Zuleikha’s thoughts, feelings, frustrations, and longings, all beautifully presented through lyrical prose. This varied tone mimics Iskander’s no-nonsense approach to marriage and fatherhood and Zuleikha’s unhappiness and subsequent spiral into the sordid world of infidelity. The violent yet murky scene when Zuleikha miscarries her second child because of her husband’s explosive temper and abuse after learning of her adultery is horrific and difficult to read, for sure, but it climatically pushes her to discover her autonomy and find the ultimate freedom to choose her own path. The ending of the story is uniquely presented as a tentative beginning, complete with possibilities and with Zuleikha spreading her wings, finding her voice, and taking a chance.

This debut novel is hopefully the first of many more from Suman Mallick because he definitely has the skill of telling a story that both intrigues and sparks thought and discussion.

I received a free copy of this book from Lone Star Book Blog Tours in exchange for my honest review.

Suman Mallick received his MFA from Portland State University and is the assistant managing editor of the quarterly literary magazine Under the Gum Tree. He lives in Texas.