Book review of Maryam & Son: Inside Mirza Waheed’s latest novel

In her extended family of members with similar dispositions, Margaret Thatcher is a model many of them seek inspiration from. In such circumstances of life and socio-political inclinations, Maryam couldn’t believe that her son Dilawar Ali would have gone missing as she discovers his absence from their home one day. 

Maryam and her son Dilawar are the protagonists of British-Indian writer Mirza Waheed’s new novel, Maryam & Son. The book’s title is derived from a dream cherished by Dilawar to launch a catering business on the strength of his mother’s long experience as a school chef and his own prowess as an information technology whiz kid. It wouldn’t be fulfilled as he goes missing, sending the mother into a clash and clamour with the state’s security apparatus because the secret service believes Dilawar is in a swordsman picture on an ISIS video from Iraq. Maryam & Son, which follows Tell Her Everything, the Kashmir-born author’s previous novel, about a father and his estranged daughter, explores the bond between a mother and her son, albeit one accused of being a jihadi and the other a jihadi’s mother.

Set in the London Borough, Maryam & Son has a beginning like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel: “Maryam Ali found her son missing on a Monday morning in early February, his bed empty, the duvet folded at the edge, two pairs of trainers tidy against the wall.” What follows is a frantic search, which takes Maryam and her younger sisters Zarrine and Saffina to the neighbourhood police station to file a missing person report.

As days pass by and the secret service personnel arrive at the doorstep with questions on an ISIS swordsman travelling from England to Iraq, Maryam finds herself thrown into a whirlpool of emotions. At first it is an easy response: Dilawar has gone out with his friends and will be home any moment. Soon it turns into anxiety, fear and abandonment. As secret service’s searches at her home continue for Dilawar’s belongings that could link him with ISIS, for the reason the American analysts have found only 78% match for Dilawar and the swordsman, Maryam’s tempers start to fray. 

Waheed’s portrait of a migrant mother in crisis is a one woman’s struggle with her family and herself. Maryam is a strong woman who has integrated into the English society with hard work. Her relationship with her son is stronger because of losing her husband Ashfaq from a heart attack when Dilawar was still a small child. She is someone her family, friends, neighbours and colleagues look up to for inspiration.

He raises her son with two Eids and one Christmas, an upbringing that comes natural to her though there are moments when she hates Tony Blair for bringing the bombs on Iraq. She even went to the protests in central London against her prime minister. Her family was such that Dilawar’s cousins wanted to go to Disneyland for Christmas. “We will take a cauldron of korma to the church,” jokes one of her sisters. Dilawar was fun too. “Think of me as a PC Plumber,” he would tell his mother, who would become nervous when her son changed jobs often and finally become a freelancer.

Maryam & Son builds a powerful narrative of an independent woman, who often gets thrown off the track she sets for her family. Her husband’s death unnerves Maryam, but she survives the tragedy for her son and herself. But when her son goes missing and the secret service begins to occupy her home, emotions, which were once a strength, gets the better of her. Waheed builds the unravelling of Maryam brick by brick, shifting scenes with sharp turns. A missing case becomes a national security matter and a strong bond begins to show signs of disintegration.

Faizal Khan is a freelancer

Maryam & Son
Mirza Waheed
Westland Books
Pp 254, Rs 699