Up In The Main House & Other Stories

by Nadeem Zaman

"In Bangladeshi American Zaman’s collection, his U.S. debut, the stark class lines drawn between those in the main house and those living outside of it in Dhaka, Bangladesh, are blurred as he navigates the lives of the latter with empathy, precision, and grace. In the title story, Kabir is torn between his love for his wife, Anwara, and his worry that she’s having too much fun playing mistress while the real master and mistress are away. Some stories’ characters orbit or serve the same main family, the Qureshis, as in “The Father and the Judge,” in which a father who’s worried about his daughter’s abusive husband travels to a city where one Qureshi is a judge to ask him for the authority and protection of his name. In one of the best stories, “The Holdup,” a wave of crime has gripped the Gulshan district; the intimate nature of the robberies means that it’s the servants that fall under suspicion. For Noor the cook, this suspicion results in a double victimization when he gets into an accident that “conveniently,” per the police, knocks him out as a robbery occurs. Modern-day Dhaka and its residents are generously represented in this powerful collection. Meticulously constructed in both language and emotion, Zaman’s stories sneak up on the reader and consistently deliver." - Publisher's Weekly

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

250 pages, Paperback

Published November 5, 2019

Reviews

[Kiki · Rating 5 out of 5]

That last story 😭. My heart. 4.5 ⭐.

Update: February 18, 2020

Zaman slips the reader into these interconnected stories set in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Most of the characters centred are of lower status— caretakers, cooks, security guards—alongside barely middle class office workers who suffer pay cuts after a corporate takeover by a US company, or a wastrel offspring of an established family.

I loved the stories' elusive, somewhat precarious quality. Open ended narratives rarely resolved, characters we leave on the brink, on the verge of merging into something bigger, or perhaps tumbling into disaster? Or ending in a sorrowful close.

Bangladesh's history, particular religious and political landscape, and gender norms suffuse all interactions like air. Zaman includes enough for the interested reader who wants to know more. Issues of power, justice, money, and alliance are reflected in a married couple's abusive relationship or engagement negotiations as marriage operates as a societal nucleus.

Gender is binary and queerness present in only one story but Zaman excels at delineating how intersectional power and privilege is—how one is centred and marginalised in several concurrent circumstances.

I don't understand this book's 3.29 ⭐ rating here. On the spectrum it leans closer to the 4 ⭐ star end of the 4.5 ⭐—iz my Maths don't argue wid me 😄—but I'm changing it to 5 stars to counter other readers' bad taste.

[Sarah :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

They were fine, I suppose. A little boring. Really all just slice of life stuff with a similar moral. The writing was excellent, but I found none of the characters or stories compelling.

[Ming · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm convinced short stories do not demonstrate Zaman's storycrafting skills.

This collection of 7 stories generally felt incomplete. "The Father and the Judge" is the only one that came close to having a sense of completion and I like it the most of the set. The remainder had no resolution or climax, or had some lukewarm/pallid closure. "The Forced Witness" might have had some climax if we infer what happened.

Often I felt like something was missing in terms of the story. The writing (at the sentence and paragraph level) is technically very solid. But the story construction has gaps that left me confused and unsatisfied.

I don't know if the fuller format of a novel would showcase Zaman better.

[Arif · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A remarkable collection of stories that captures, in dense, atomic detail, the warp and weft of Dhaka's tapestry of lives. Zaman's work invites comparison to Arvind Adiga's White Tiger for its resolute, unsentimental depiction of the frozen web of hierarchical power and societal expectations in which we find ourselves trapped, whether we are master or servant, hero or villain."

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic and fascinating collection of short stories set in Dhaka.

[Jae · Rating 1 out of 5]

not for me. pretty boring stories about women being treated terribly by men. ok, dude. only ready half and gave up.

[Sovigne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Almost every story felt unfinished, as there is no resolution to the problems faced in each story. I understand the lack of conclusion in the stories as a choice, but it resulted in a very unfulfilling collection. The writing is very good and the premise of the stories compelling, but I began to get bored after reading a couple because I knew no resolution would be forthcoming. I had to really push myself to finish the collection, I only did so because of a reading challenge I’m participating in.

[Carla (literary.infatuation) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked how all stories are centered around a single family or household. Truly a charming collection