In 'Good People,' the story depends on who's telling it
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On the day the Sharafs bury their 18-year-old daughter, the girl’s mother is so bereaved, she can barely stand. The father is so anguished, he nearly climbs into the grave himself.
But as Patmeena Sabit’s debut novel unspools, it’s up to the reader to parse the truth about the girl’s death — and who may have been accomplices to it. The narrative is told through a kaleidoscope of viewpoints. Fellow Afghan immigrants, journalists and law enforcement each relate what they saw, through their own lens. But eye witnesses can be wrong. Neighbors have an agenda. One person’s truth is another person’s lie.
For Sabit, that’s the whole point.
“When I was creating the story, I was thinking … about the nature of perception and how reliable that is, and objective truth and if there is an objective truth to any one situation,” she tells Kerri Miller.
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“Good People” is both a cultural study of a community’s judgement and an interrogation of what it means to be an American — all with a crime at the center of it. Sabit and Miller talk about it on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas.
Guest:
Patmeena Sabit was born in Kabul and fled to Pakistan and then to the United States with her family after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. “Good People” is her debut novel.
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