- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Crown (Aug 25 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0307409104
- ISBN-13: 978-0307409102
- Product Dimensions: 14.7 x 2.5 x 21.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #318,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
One of the Huffington Post’s “10 Best Books of 2009”
"Viciously hilarious, HOME BOY bursts with intelligence and energy and pathos. I haven’t read anything like it.”
—Gary Shteyngart, author, Absurdistan
“A genre busting, page-turning debut, HOME BOYfuses street slang and literary discourse, pop culture and politics, history and comedy, East and West. Ultimately, though, HOME BOY is a thoughtful story about a boy who becomes a man in these fraught and frightening times.”
—John Wray, author, Lowboy
“A marvelous literary achievement shaped by a refreshingly humane, irresistibly cool, and distinctly curried sensibility. From the word go, Home Boy is populated by larger-than-life characters and big ideas. It will make you think, laugh out loud, possibly cry, and at times, dance with joy. You won’t even notice that H. M. Naqvi has redefined South Asian literature.”
—Lee Siegel , author, Love in a Dead Language
“Naqvi’s fast-paced plot, foul-mouthed erudition and pitch-perfect dialogue make for a stellar debut.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A breezy, thoughtful and witty novel about the immigrant experience.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Naqvi’s story of immigrant life, ambivalence, and identiy is, by turns, comic and sad…with an endearingly and enduringly sweet sensibility wthat will linger in readers’ memories.”
—Booklist
“An authentic and honest portrayal of what it’s like to be a Muslim living in post-9/11 America.”
—USA Today
“Naqvi’s smart and sorrowful debut is at once immigrant narrative, bildungsroman and New York City novel, with a dash of the picaresque….Home Boy is a remarkably engaging novel that delights as it disturbs.”
—New York Times Book Review
“[A] fast-paced and evocative coming-of-age tale.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Naqvi’s prose is evocative of Nabokov, in its immense energy….a treasure trove of illuminating language.”
—Anis Shivani, Huffington Post
“A witty, humorous yet poignant tale of a Pakistani immigrant coming of age on the streets of New York City.”
—New York Press
“Witty, sharply observed….a very auspicious debut.”
—Connecticut News
“One of the best books we’ve read all year—a big-hearted, yet unsentimental page-turner that is letter-perfect in its evocation of time and place….A boisterous and funny coming-of-age story.”
—MUG [Manhattan User’s Guide]
"Viciously hilarious, HOME BOY bursts with intelligence and energy and pathos. I haven’t read anything like it.”
—Gary Shteyngart, author, Absurdistan
“A genre busting, page-turning debut, HOME BOYfuses street slang and literary discourse, pop culture and politics, history and comedy, East and West. Ultimately, though, HOME BOY is a thoughtful story about a boy who becomes a man in these fraught and frightening times.”
—John Wray, author, Lowboy
“A marvelous literary achievement shaped by a refreshingly humane, irresistibly cool, and distinctly curried sensibility. From the word go, Home Boy is populated by larger-than-life characters and big ideas. It will make you think, laugh out loud, possibly cry, and at times, dance with joy. You won’t even notice that H. M. Naqvi has redefined South Asian literature.”
—Lee Siegel , author, Love in a Dead Language
“Naqvi’s fast-paced plot, foul-mouthed erudition and pitch-perfect dialogue make for a stellar debut.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A breezy, thoughtful and witty novel about the immigrant experience.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Naqvi’s story of immigrant life, ambivalence, and identiy is, by turns, comic and sad…with an endearingly and enduringly sweet sensibility wthat will linger in readers’ memories.”
—Booklist
“An authentic and honest portrayal of what it’s like to be a Muslim living in post-9/11 America.”
—USA Today
“Naqvi’s smart and sorrowful debut is at once immigrant narrative, bildungsroman and New York City novel, with a dash of the picaresque….Home Boy is a remarkably engaging novel that delights as it disturbs.”
—New York Times Book Review
“[A] fast-paced and evocative coming-of-age tale.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Naqvi’s prose is evocative of Nabokov, in its immense energy….a treasure trove of illuminating language.”
—Anis Shivani, Huffington Post
“A witty, humorous yet poignant tale of a Pakistani immigrant coming of age on the streets of New York City.”
—New York Press
“Witty, sharply observed….a very auspicious debut.”
—Connecticut News
“One of the best books we’ve read all year—a big-hearted, yet unsentimental page-turner that is letter-perfect in its evocation of time and place….A boisterous and funny coming-of-age story.”
—MUG [Manhattan User’s Guide]
Product Description
“Naqvi’s fast-paced plot, foul-mouthed erudition and pitch-perfect dialogue make for a stellar debut.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
They are renaissance men. They are bons vivants. They are three young Pakistani men in New York City at the turn of the millennium: AC, a gangsta-rap-spouting academic; Jimbo, a hulking Pushtun DJ from the streets of Jersey City; and Chuck, a wideeyed kid, fresh off the boat from the homeland, just trying to get by. Things start coming together for Chuck when he unexpectedly secures a Wall Street gig and begins rolling with socialites and scenesters flanked by his pals, who routinely bring down the house at hush-hush downtown haunts. In a city where origins matter less than the talent for self-invention, the three Metrostanis have the guts to claim the place as their own.
But when they embark on a road trip to the hinterland weeks after 9/11 in search of the Shaman, a Gatsbyesque compatriot who seemingly disappears into thin air, things go horribly wrong. Suddenly, they find themselves in a changed, charged America.
Rollicking, bittersweet, and sharply observed, Home Boy is at once an immigrant’s tale, a mystery, and a story of love and loss, as well as a unique meditation on Americana and notions of collective identity. It announces the debut of an original, electrifying voice in contemporary fiction.
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
They are renaissance men. They are bons vivants. They are three young Pakistani men in New York City at the turn of the millennium: AC, a gangsta-rap-spouting academic; Jimbo, a hulking Pushtun DJ from the streets of Jersey City; and Chuck, a wideeyed kid, fresh off the boat from the homeland, just trying to get by. Things start coming together for Chuck when he unexpectedly secures a Wall Street gig and begins rolling with socialites and scenesters flanked by his pals, who routinely bring down the house at hush-hush downtown haunts. In a city where origins matter less than the talent for self-invention, the three Metrostanis have the guts to claim the place as their own.
But when they embark on a road trip to the hinterland weeks after 9/11 in search of the Shaman, a Gatsbyesque compatriot who seemingly disappears into thin air, things go horribly wrong. Suddenly, they find themselves in a changed, charged America.
Rollicking, bittersweet, and sharply observed, Home Boy is at once an immigrant’s tale, a mystery, and a story of love and loss, as well as a unique meditation on Americana and notions of collective identity. It announces the debut of an original, electrifying voice in contemporary fiction.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Exercise in Cosmopolitanism, Aug 27 2009
By S. Abbas Raza "Editor, 3quarksdaily.com" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Home Boy: A Novel (Hardcover)
This is simply the best novel I have read in years (and I read a lot of novels). Funnier than Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, more substantive than Shteyngart's Absurdistan, Naqvi achieves a masterly comic prose: witty, intelligent, sensitive, poignant, hilarious, all at the same time.Naqvi is the shrewdest observer of cosmopolitan urban life that I know, with a unique eye for just the right telling detail. Even as seasoned and celebrated a novelist as Salman Rushdie tried and failed to capture the New York City zeitgeist of the new millenium in his novel Fury, but Naqvi succeeds, and succeeds brilliantly where Rushdie couldn't.
This novel shows how people from all over the world (whether from Pakistan or Senegal or Korea) easily become "New Yorkers" in no time. The plot is compelling and the language is exquisite. Buy it. Read it. And then you'll end up buying many copies for friends, just as I did.
Young Husain Murtaza Naqvi is the, ah, new South Asian writer to watch.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Home Boy, Sep 7 2009
By Louise Gordon - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Home Boy: A Novel (Hardcover)
H. M. Naqvi's Home Boy takes the reader to post-9/11 Manhattan through the eyes of Chuck and his two "chums," AC and Jimbo. The three are suddenly wrenched from their bon vivant cosmopolitan lives when they're picked up by the FBI and thrown into a detention center for questioning.Naqvi's narrative and dialogue are brilliantly rendered, capturing the ethos and ethnicity of the New York experience in tones that for me bring Faulkner to mind rather than Rushdie. Race, religion and tough guy interrogation tactics reveal a coming of age, not only for Chuck and his chums, but everyone in a time when precarious human rights can be dispensed with on the basis of suspicion alone.
By contrast, Naqvi also explores the lifetime bonds of family and friendship. It's a tale of tragedy and laughter, both captured in unforgettable scenes. For instance, the classes and test Chuck has to take before getting his NY cab driver's license after being laid off in the banking business.
H. M. Naqvi is an extraordinary raconteur. His gifts of insight match his gift of gab.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love The Book-Both Entertaining & Touching-A MUST BUY, Sep 7 2009
By Shawn - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Home Boy: A Novel (Hardcover)
I simply loved this book! It's both entertaining ad touching! A lovely journey through the triumphs and losses of young man finding his way in New York. "Homeboy" ends with the bittersweet strength one finds at the remains of a day marking the end of youth. A novel with heart, "Homeboy" is a must read!
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