A Review of Reema Zaman’s I am Yours: A Shared Memoir (Amberjack Publishing, 2019)

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A Review of Reema Zaman’s I am Yours: A Shared Memoir (Amberjack Publishing, 2019).
By Stephen Hong Sohn



I was interested in reading this title because of the subtitle actually: I wondered what a “shared memoir” might be. In any case, the marketing description over at B&N gives us a sense of Reema Zaman’s political aims in publishing I am Yours: A Shared Memoir (Amberjack Publishing, 2019):

“It is time. It is time to free our voice. To speak is a revolution. For too long, through the most intimate acts of erasure, women have been silenced. Now, women everywhere are breaking through the limits placed on us by family, society, and tradition. To find our voices. To make space for ourselves in this world. Now is the moment to reclaim what was once lost, stolen, forsaken, or abandoned. I Am Yours is about my fight to protect and free my voice from those who have sought to silence me, for the sake of creating a world where all voices are welcome and respected. Because the voice, without intimacy, will atrophy. We’re in this together. You are mine, and I am yours.”

Clearly inspired by the #metoo movement, Zaman pens a particularly timely memoir concerning the pitfalls of codependence and the need to speak out against forms of violence (sexual, emotional, and otherwise). Zaman, at first, structures the memoir chronologically and uses the present tense mode. While a bit awkward in its execution, the immediacy of the temporality draws in the reader. We see as Zaman struggles growing up as the child of Bangladeshi migrants (she grows up in various parts of the world, including Hawai‘i and Thailand). But the real centerpiece of the memoir is Zaman’s first marriage, which initiates in her mid-20s and becomes a space of domestic abuse, especially focused on a vicious form of gaslighting. From my personal perspective, Zaman sets up the reader quite well for this sequence: the romance is truly too picture perfect. The man comes off as an absolute charmer, the kind scene in romance plots of Hollywood films, so my suspicions were already raised. I was waiting for something to fall apart and fall apart it does. Zaman patiently shows us how she begins to walk increasingly on egg shells around him, making sure to keep him steady so that the marriage remains relatively stable. But her partner’s emotional swings continue to escalate in their fluctuating capacities, and Zaman becomes spent by this labor. Eventually, the marriage disintegrates and the memoir’s subsequent portions enable Zaman to reflect upon the problematics of that connection. Zaman is working through her troubles, not only through her writing, but also through the dynamics of other relationships in her life. Her family, for instance, undergoes considerable transformation as she grows up. Her parents divorce, her mother remarries, while her father also moves on with his life. She begins to see that much of her sense of attachment comes from the complexities of her initial upbringing. The other element, which sometimes takes a backseat to these personal struggles, is Zaman’s challenges navigating the acting/performance industry as a woman of color. I would have loved to hear more about these issues and perhaps that story is better served in a memoir of its own. The “shared” from the title not only speaks to the shared struggles of so many women, but also the internal identities that Zaman is attempting to cohere. Thus, the phrase “I am Yours,” while initially spoken in the context of a romance with another man is really repurposed to mean that Zaman has come to love herself, a powerful affirmation of the intimacy that she ultimately needs to find an independence that will more productively serve her.

Buy the Book Here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-am-yours-reema-zaman/1129823649#/

Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Nicholas Clark
Web Posting: 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 sohnucr@gmail.com
Nicholas Clark, PhD Student in English, at nclar004@ucr.edu

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