A Pakistani family saga

• Book: The Good Children
• Location: Lahore
• Author: Roopa Farooki

Review Author: an1081

In the lead up to Partition, Doctor Saddeq foresees trouble. He is right of course, and the only reason his medical practice in Lahore escapes being burned to the ground in the riots, is the shiny new plaque on the door with the muslim name of the practice. The Saddeq family thus escapes the worst tragedies of Partition, but they suffer in their own way, at the hands of their mother, a calculating and manipulating woman who seems to despise her sons, Sulaman (Sully) and Jamal Kamal (Jackie) and smother her daughters, Mae and Lana. While the boys are being reminded with ferocious beatings of their duty to study hard, the daughters aren’t allowed to do so, as this would compromise their chances of finding a good husband.

The narrative goes back and forth between the time when the four children were young, their adolescence in Pakistan, the boys’ time at university, Sully in Amercia, Jackie in London, their adult lives, the marriages and divorces of Mae and Lana, and then moves back to Pakistan as the family is reunited for the funeral of their father and the deathbed of their mother.

I found this to be a very enjoyable family saga. A lot of ground is covered as the lives of three generations are being explored, the third generation however only briefly touched upon. For me the best part of the novel were the first and second, in which we see how the four children grow up and what has become of them, each in their own corner of the world. The third part felt slightly superfluous as it elaborates on storylines which have already been partly revealed in the second part. I would have liked a more straightforward narrative instead of the constant meandering between decades.

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