Far from my Father’s House
by Jill McGivering
(Blue Door, R160)
Ellen Thomas is a foreign correspondent covering the conflict in Pakistan.
She is visiting a refugee camp where people are dying mysteriously.
As she tries to uncover the truth behind the deaths, Ellen crosses paths with a gentle school teacher and his daughter Layla.
Layla is 13 when she and her family are forced to flee from the Taliban.
Her family are lucky to make it into the refugee camp.
But in the camp a series of tragedies leave Layla broken and dispirited.
In the end, she has to make a choice between her traditional way of life and marrying a man old enough to be her father or asserting her independence and finding her own way after being disowned by her family.
Far from my Father’s House is a story of endless, unimaginable tragedy for a person as young as Layla.
That she survives that much heartache is a miracle in itself.
The novel suggests a degree of hope for Layla – hope that she will survive the heartache and carve a life for herself in a country torn apart by war and mired in patriarchal injustice.
After reading Ellen Thomas’s first novel, The Last Kestrel, I was blown away by her deep sense of humanity and empathy for her characters.
Far from my Father’s House is a valiant effort and certainly gets across the heartache, futility and horror of war.
But I felt Thomas struggled at times with the concept of patriarchy and often fell into stereotypical traps.
I also felt that the novel was slow in starting and its disjointed beginning was a bit unsettling. – Daily News