Brother Alive, the debut novel by New York’s Zain Khalid, follows the lives of three boys who are adopted by a Staten Island Imam and raised as brothers above the Mosque he keeps in a diverse and neglected neighbourhood. Dayo is of Nigerian heritage and shows early aptitude for smooth talking and business deals (including a memorable grift at Ground Zero at the height of the US’s early 00s Islamophobia), while the Korean Iseul takes advantage of his giant frame to excel in basketball. The third and primary brother Youssef, who narrates several sections in the novel, is from location unknown in the Middle East, and feels inexplicably shunned by adopted “father” Salim, the intelligent but prickly Imam who teaches the boys everything except for facts on his or their personal lives.
To further complicate matters, Youssef keeps a secret of his own. He has an additional “brother” that only he can see, a strange, shapeshifting combination of imaginary friend, familiar and mental illness that feeds on memories and information. This left-field narrative choice illustrates the multilayered and miscellaneous nature of Khalid’s writing. What begins as a domestic novel morphs into a mystery, a magical realist fable and a revenge thriller, all the while making broad and often poignant observations on themes of family, faith, LGBTQ+ persecution, the USA and the Middle East.
If there is a criticism of the novel its that it perhaps bites off more than it can chew. The strongest sections are the early ones, where Khalid captures New York in all of its dense, contradictory magic. When the narrative zooms out and moves elsewhere (including into Imam Salim’s past and a Neom-style futuristic city in Saudi Arabia), some of the evocative detail and poetic lyricism is lost. But aspiration is hardly a failing, and you certainly can’t accuse Khalid of making easy, audience-pleasing choices. An author willing and able to take risks is becoming an ever-rarer beast in contemporary fiction, and Zain Khalid is a welcome reminder of their value.
Brother Alive is out now via Grove Press.