Nadia Hashimi: A House Without Windows: A Novel (Hardcover, 2016, William Morrow)
Hardcover, 414 pages
Published Nov. 3, 2016 by William Morrow.
It was okay. Not bad, but not great either. The author has a bad habit of telling rather than showing, and it felt like very little happened as a result. The investigative process was rather brief, and we spent an awful lot of time in the beginning setting up Zeba's feelings about her husband, her life, and everything. It didn't hold my interest as much as other historical fiction in this setting has in the past.
"My full height, my beloved husband never did see
Because the fool dared turn his back on me."
This is a heartbreaking story about women's lives in Afghanistan. In this book women feel more free and open in prison than they did at home. Zeba meets many women after the murder of her husband. Most of them are in prison for zina - sex outside of marriage. That can mean anything from a premarital sex to an affair to rape to just being rumored to be alone with a man. This book depicts a society that places so much value on a man's honor but it measures that honor entirely by the behavior of woman instead of behavior of the man.
Everyone knows that Zeba's husband was not a good man. However, now that he is dead, his honor (that he did not uphold in life) is of the most …
"My full height, my beloved husband never did see
Because the fool dared turn his back on me."
This is a heartbreaking story about women's lives in Afghanistan. In this book women feel more free and open in prison than they did at home. Zeba meets many women after the murder of her husband. Most of them are in prison for zina - sex outside of marriage. That can mean anything from a premarital sex to an affair to rape to just being rumored to be alone with a man. This book depicts a society that places so much value on a man's honor but it measures that honor entirely by the behavior of woman instead of behavior of the man.
Everyone knows that Zeba's husband was not a good man. However, now that he is dead, his honor (that he did not uphold in life) is of the most importance. The fact that Zeba was arrested when she is found sitting by his dead body and not murdered by her neighbors is seen as a very merciful act. No attempts are made to collect evidence. She was there so obviously she did it.
Yusef, an Afghani-born American-raised lawyer, has just come back to Afghanistan to work on cases like Zina's. She drives him crazy by refusing to participate in her own defense.
The prison life in this story reminded me a lot of the South Korean prison that Sun in is in Sense8, if you've seen that show. The women come from backgrounds so dominated by men that many of them are finding life better in jail.
This book does drag a little in the middle while the mystery of Zeba's husband's death is being investigated and Yusef is trying a bunch of strategies to get Zeba free. I liked the inclusion of her mother who is considered to be able to do magic. Zeba uses what she learned from her mother to gain status in prison even though she is conflicted about it.
