Northern Boy

What a brilliant debut by Iqbal Hussain!
I love finding a voice where I can relate to the characters and the situations, and the story is compelling, too. This had all that in spades.
Northern Boy uses a dual timeline to tell the story of Rafi Aziz. It follows his childhood in Blackburn from the 1970s to the early 2000s as he returns home, ending with an ending in the present era.
Rafi Aziz is not your usual young Pakistani Muslim boy living in North England. He'd rather be dressing up with his best mate, Shazia, and dancing around her room, singing pop songs and Bollywood hits, than playing football with the rest of the lads.
Music has been a part of his growing up since he can remember, with a mother who sings with a beautiful voice around the house and dotes on her youngest son, encouraging her to join in with her all the time.
Things come to a head when the family realises that his talent is a passion, and he wants to pursue his love of music, singing, and dancing rather than become a doctor or an accountant.
Then, negativity starts, and "What would the neighbours/community say?" becomes more important than allowing Rafi to realise his dreams.
When we jolt forward, Rafi is older and more established as a well-known stage actor/performer, living a life he's sure his family would disapprove of in Australia. He heads back to his hometown for Shazia's wedding, where he has to deal with the fireworks and many concealed parts of his life are uncovered.
There were so many things I loved about this book. Rafi is a boy I could have met growing up. I knew of many who suppressed their interests because it wasn't the done thing.
I also really related to Maam, his mother, who was battling her cultural demons, missing her homeland, and wanting what was best for her children.
This is Billy Elliot, the British Pakistani Edit! An incredible immersion into the life of a boy who just wanted to follow his dreams.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Unbound for an ARC.

Thanks Unbound and NetGalley for this ARC. I loved this book. As a person who comes from a similar culture as Iqbal Hussain, I so identify with a lot of the references even if we don't share all the same reference points. At the end of the day he is a boy of a patriarchal society and culture who has the weight of familial expectations, and cultural and religious taboos upon him.

And all he wants is Bollywood. He dreams in technicolour and would much rather wear the colours of the rainbow.

I loved this family saga told over a generation from the 70's to now... seeing the family saga, the coming of age and coming out with the backdrop of Bollywood is so beautifully written. I couldn't put it down till the last page was read. And the book stayed with me for a long time.

This book has been billed as 'Billy Elliot meets Bend It Like Beckham' but I think that's selling this novel short. I totally understand why novels are often billed as x meets y but I worry that it might imply a derivative nature. This is a unique narrative and a story that has been crying out to be told.

Personal story-time (with apologies, this is a pretty common feature in my reviews when I relate deeply with a protagonist). I am British and I come from an Indian Bengali Hindu background. In Asian communities, at the risk of generalising: 1. People are not encouraged, or are indeed actively discouraged, to pursue the arts. 2. Homosexuality is still pretty invisible.

I'm a lesbian and even though my parents are entirely accepting, I wouldn't dream of coming out to anyone in the community. I was visiting my parents this past weekend and my mother's friend came over. During the usual catch-up conversation, she asked me if I was thinking of men and marriage in the near future. There's always the temptation to just confess 'I'M GAY' and watch the person's reaction - apparently even my mother was tempted to do it this time - but it really doesn't feel worth it. I don't expect outright condemnation, but I certainly expect the atmosphere to be immediately uncomfortable, so I really related to that aspect of the book.

This novel contains the increasingly popular structure of starting in the present, then going back and forth from the past. The past section begins in 1981, where Rafi lives with his parents in Blackburn. I was kid in the late nineties/early noughties and Rafi is from a Pakistani Muslim background so I can't pretend to fully understand his experience, but one does not need to in order to understand what Rafi goes through. Hussain is an absolutely wonderful writer and everyone can relate to being a child and responding to an unfair society, at an age when it's impossible to understand why on earth the world is so flawed, and why the adults don't just fix it.

In the present, roughly late 2001/2002 (stated as several months after 9/11), Rafi is a musical theatre star living in Australia with his loving boyfriend. His best friend's wedding brings him back to the UK, where he struggles to reconcile his genuine identity with a community that is still largely hostile to gay people.

I loved the way that relationships were written in this book. A special shout-out to the character of Mr H, Rafi's music teacher, who in a classic case of dramatic irony is evidently a gay man to the reader, with Rafi none the wiser at the time.

What really moved my heart was Rafi's relationship with his mother. She absolutely adores her son and we feel it in her dialogue and actions, but she also struggles with Rafi being a gender nonconforming boy who prefers dressing up to football, and singing to academic studies. There is a scene between an adult Rafi and his mother late in the novel which made me sob. I will not elaborate further, to avoid spoilers, but it is the strongest scene in the novel for me. I found the ending very satisfying and I'll be eagerly looking out for more work from this author.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Unbound for the ARC!