Book Review - This Is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Acclaimed for his short story collections, Daniyal Mueenuddin’s epic debut novel is an excoriating portrait of corruption and class divisions in Pakistan. Spanning several decades from 1955 to 2013, the narrative follows the intertwined lives of a wealthy landowning family and their staff. Mueenuddin, whose collection, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (2009), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, is a masterful storyteller interweaving beautifully realised characters and a compelling plot. Divided into four, self-contained stories, we first meet Bayazid (also known as Yazid) in ‘The Golden Boy’. Abandoned on the streets of Rawalpindi in the mid-1950s as a small child, he is adopted by Karim Khan, the kindly owner of a curry stall, and becomes his apprentice. Yazid later falls for his best friend’s sister, but rebuffed by the family’s maid for daring to cross social boundaries, he retreats to Azad Kashmir and tries his luck as a smuggler. He eventually sett...