From acclaimed poet Bushra Rehman, who is a key figure in South Asian American literary circles, comes an unforgettable story about female friendship and queer love in a Pakistani-American community.
ROSES, IN THE MOUTH OF A LION
by Bushra Rehman
Flatiron/St. Martin’s Press, December 2022
Razia Mirza lives in a tight-knit Muslim neighborhood in Corona, Queens. She has known her best friend Saima since she was born. Broken into three sections, ROSES, IN THE MOUTH OF A LION first chronicles their friendship as city children who find misadventures among the wild grape vines and weeds growing in the parking lots of Queens. When the friendship ends, Razia’s grief and loss transform her forever. In the second section, Razia befriends Taslima, a new girl in the community. Together, they chafe at the restrictions imposed on them and embark on small rebellions: listening to scandalous American music, wearing mini-skirts, and cutting school to explore the city, as Razia begins to question some of the traditions her parents expect her to follow. Section three takes Razia further afield when she’s admitted to Stuyvesant, a specialized high school in Manhattan. There she meets Angela, who lives with her Bohemian mother in the East Village. Razia is attracted to Angela in a way that surprises her but fills her with a new joy of understanding. When their queer relationship is discovered by a Pakistani Aunty in the community, Razia is forced to choose between her family and her own future. Following Razia from girlhood to young adulthood, this novel beautifully chronicles her journey toward reconciling her heritage and Muslim traditions with her desire to be true to her life path. With humor and pathos, we delve into the emotional complexities of religious communities, female friendship and queer desire.
A key figure in the South Asian American literary and Women of Color feminist circle, Bushra Rehman is a writer and speaker of tremendous power. Her connection with audiences comes from years of being on the road, sharing her particular brand of storytelling, political writing, and poetry. As a young woman, Rehman coedited the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism, a seminal work on race and American feminism. Inspired by the writers in Colonize This! Rehman’s wrote her autobiographical novel Corona (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013), a dark comedy about Razia Mirza, a young Pakistani woman growing up in a tight-knit Muslim community in Corona, Queens. Rehman’s latest work, Marianna’s Beauty Salon (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018), is a collection of poems, gathered over twenty years of her life in the South Asian queer activist scene.
L.A. is parched, dry as a bone, and all Oscar, the weather-obsessed patriarch of the Alvarado family, desperately wants is a little rain. He’s harboring a costly secret that distracts him from everything else. His wife, Keila, desperate for a life with a little more intimacy and a little less Weather Channel, feels she has no choice but to end their marriage. Their three daughters―Claudia, a television chef with a hard-hearted attitude; Olivia, a successful architect who suffers from gentrification guilt; and Patricia, a social media wizard who has an uncanny knack for connecting with audiences but not with her lovers―are blindsided and left questioning everything they know. Each will have to take a critical look at her own relationships and make some tough decisions along the way.
Every story has its secrets.
Marlowe Banks’ life has come apart at the seams. Her last costume design for an off-Broadway show was a disaster, and she’s realized that her fiancé may not be the right guy for her after all. So she gives him back the ring and leaves New York for Los Angeles and a job as a lowly Production Assistant on a popular TV show. She just wants to fade into the background, do the meaningless work thrown at her by her demanding boss, and not have any more prickly run-ins with the show’s bad boy, Angus Gordon. But then a costume mix-up requires Marlowe to step in as a waitress for some background work in a scene. It should be simple; all she has to do is pour coffee—but Marlowe’s wish to stay in the background doesn’t last long. When the episode airs, some of her and Angus’ real-life tension has come through on screen, and now, suddenly, everyone wants Angus’ character to date Marlowe’s waitress. Soon Marlowe is offered an arc on the show, but when she doesn’t know who she is anymore, how can she pretend to be someone else? As she spends more time with Angus and starts to get to know the man behind the grumpy persona, she sees the possibility for another life that she isn’t sure she’ll ever be ready for. And when her old life in New York comes calling, Marlowe will have to decide which version of herself she wants to be. Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Evvie Drake Starts Over, MARLOWE BANKS, REDESIGNED is a story about a woman taking a second chance on life, love, and herself.
Lulu Sanchez Pena and Cara Romera became friends soon after Cara’s son Fernando ran away. The mystery of why he ran away and the search to find him is central to their lives. When the two women are laid off from the factory where they work, the financial impacts are devastating; and when Cara unexpectedly dies and Fernando reappears, Lulu must question his intentions. Told from Lulu’s point of view, and with Cara’s voice coming through in a recorded transcript of a job interview, this is a novel that asks the reader not to accept the story as fact but to piece it together themselves. Much like gossip that vexes and catches a person in the way it spins and invents, Lulu and Cara spin tales about themselves assembling a memory of their lives and community. With its themes of immigration, aging, LGBTQ+ acceptance, and female friendship, this is a timely novel from a powerful literary voice.