The Sweetness Of Tears: A Novel [Paperback]

It may be inevitable that The Sweetness of Tears will be compared to The Kite Runner (indeed, the advertising on the back cover of my review copy invites that comparison) but the two novels have little in common. While The Kite Runner is a plot-driven novel that has strong characters, The Sweetness of Tears is a character-driven novel that is structured as a series of interwoven life-stories. They are, for the most part, stories of sacrifice and broken families, interesting and sometimes touching but not quite compelling.

Raised as an evangelical Christian, Jo March has little use for Darwin, but her study of Mendel opens her eyes -- the brown eyes she could not have inherited from her blue-eyed parents. Two years later she meets her biological father: Sadiq Mubarak. Point of view shifts to Mubarak as he recalls his childhood in Karachi, where his mother taught him that tears are sweet when they are born of love and shed for others, but "bitter when we cry selfishly for ourselves," when sorrow turns to anger. While still young, Sadiq is taken from his mother and learns to live a privileged life with his wealthy grandfather -- a spoiled existence that leads to trouble and, at the age of fifteen, exile to America. The story shifts again and again: from his mother's point of view, we again see Sadiq being taken from her; from the point of view of Jo's mother Angela, we learn the unhappy circumstances that followed Jo's conception. Other storylines take us to Guantanamo after 9/11 (where Jo is an interpreter) and to Iraq, where Jo makes a pilgrimage after her brother returns home, damaged by his American military service there.

The Sweetness of Tears tries to be a tear-jerker. At least to me, the story seemed too contrived to work on an emotional level. The 9/11 connection is forced; it could have made a fine story in its own right but Nafisa Haji doesn't make it feel real, and it's ultimately overshadowed by tragedies that befall other characters. Jo's visit to Iraq, and what she hoped to accomplish there, seemed particularly artificial. The most effective story is that of Sadiq's separation from his mother. Although Jo is more central to the novel, her experiences didn't resonate with me. Finally, all the storylines tie together a little too neatly at the end.

While the novel is reasonably well-written, Haji is addicted to sentence fragments. Some readers might appreciate the resulting "punchy" style; I found if a little annoying. Moreover, the characters all speak in the same voice and their dialog, too, is heavily laden with sentence fragments.

On a positive note, Haji creates reasonably convincing characters and uses them to illustrate worthwhile concepts: the contrast between open-minded faith and closed-minded belief; the need to confess ignorance of other cultures in order to learn from them; the difficulties of women whose rights are suppressed by men wielding religious law. At times, Haji becomes a bit preachy, resorting to lectures via dialog that don't necessarily advance the story. Haji nonetheless teaches useful lessons, particularly about the need to bridge differences: between cultures, between religious beliefs (Sunni and Shia, Christian and Muslim), between rich and poor, between genders.

The Sweetness of Tears is a flawed novel, but it's a quick read and it has something to say, and at the end I liked it despite its flaws. I guardedly recommend it for those reasons.

Nafisa Haji approaches 9/11 and the Pakistani and Muslim identity from a very unique perspective in The Sweetness of Tears: that of an evangelical Christian family. While Jo isn't a fundamentalist about her faith, she does ascribe to what her parents have taught her. As a result, it's a world-shaking shock when she discovers that the man she has called her father all her life isn't biologically related to her. At the same time, though, it makes her curious about her Pakistani heritage and desirous of exploring it further.

The overall message of The Sweetness of Tears is one of peace and compassion. Haji takes all these people, from so many different backgrounds, and brings them together in a beautiful way. At the same time, Haji highlights difficult cultural, social, and political issues within her book. The author accomplishes this by telling the story from multiple points of view, and here she isn't quite as successful as the reader would hope. The stories become jumbled and muddled. The characters don't have distinctive enough voices to be able to tell them apart just by tone or dialogue, and as a result, it can be frustrating at times. Additionally, the reader doesn't have a real emotional connection to the characters, so the story can feel contrived, especially towards the end when everything is tied up in one neat little package.

Despite my issues with The Sweetness of Tears, I did enjoy reading it. Nafisa Haji is a talented author, and I look forward to seeing what she does next.

I received this book from LibraryThing.com Early Reviewers . I am a fan of novels set in the Middle East and India but I was a bit hesitant after seeing the Evangelical Christian reference in the synopsis. After about a five pages in this was all forgotten and i was completely drawn into this story. After learning some basic genetics in a high school science class Jo March is forced to ask her mother who her real father is? After learning the truth Jo journeys down a path that leads her down an academic road that will eventually lead to a career as a translator for the government in a post 9/11 world and the life altering effects of this work. These experiences combined with those of her brother who had his own life altering experiences in Iraq lead Jo to learn more about and reconnect with the Pakistani branch of her family. Haij does a wonderful job of creating this diverse family though which we see the effects being in the military has had on multiple generations, the effects of parents who are missing or absent and through one family the we are shown views of the middle east from those who lived there and left, those who remain and those who came there because of a war not fully aware of the connection they already with this region.

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