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A review by nini23
Hellfire by Leesa Gazi, Shabnam Nadiya
4.5
I have been searching high and low for Hellfire by Leesa Gazi, translated by Shabnam Nadiya for two + years. Originally published in Bengali with the title Rourob in 2020, Hellfire (released by Eka, Westland Publications) was the English translation by Shabnam Nadiya in the same year. The ebook edition I found was released in December 2023 under a new title 'Good Girls' published by Amazon Crossing. Although I detest Amazon and have been largely successful in avoiding using their services, I succumbed in unexpectedly finding this otherwise inaccessible book. The jacket cover art from Amazon shows it's hastily slapped together with a standard Getty image, the Hellfire jacket art looks infinitely better.
So was it all worth it after the long anticipation? Definitely. Leesa Gazi has written a taut gripping novel. From the time Lovely is given permission and steps out of her house unaccompanied for the first time in forty years, I feel like I am holding my breath in suspense. This short novel (?novella) is self-contained within the space of the family household and what turns out into a momentous day of Lovely's fortieth birthday. We are given a skillful fly on the wall overview of how the household typically operates; everything is under the strict control and purview of the matriarch of the family Farida Khanam. At first she just seems to be a perfectionist and helicopter parent to her two daughters but with elucidation of past circumstances, the control she craves over everything and everyone in her orbit spills into the extreme and abnormal.
This is a female-centric led story, the males like the girls' father Mukheles are almost an afterthought. Interestingly, the voice in Lovely's head is a male one. I have just come off reading a Korean novel where the daughter became a North Korean spy due to her mother's unconscious influence. Here I am struck again by how much Beauty and Lovely's worldviews and lives are shaped by their mother while she in turn was molded by the words and behaviour of her mother and grandmother.
To say anymore would be to spoil and reading Hellfire is an experience best fresh and unencumbered by others' impressions. I am thoroughly satisfied with it, even the ending.
So was it all worth it after the long anticipation? Definitely. Leesa Gazi has written a taut gripping novel. From the time Lovely is given permission and steps out of her house unaccompanied for the first time in forty years, I feel like I am holding my breath in suspense. This short novel (?novella) is self-contained within the space of the family household and what turns out into a momentous day of Lovely's fortieth birthday. We are given a skillful fly on the wall overview of how the household typically operates; everything is under the strict control and purview of the matriarch of the family Farida Khanam. At first she just seems to be a perfectionist and helicopter parent to her two daughters but with elucidation of past circumstances, the control she craves over everything and everyone in her orbit spills into the extreme and abnormal.
This is a female-centric led story, the males like the girls' father Mukheles are almost an afterthought. Interestingly, the voice in Lovely's head is a male one. I have just come off reading a Korean novel where the daughter became a North Korean spy due to her mother's unconscious influence. Here I am struck again by how much Beauty and Lovely's worldviews and lives are shaped by their mother while she in turn was molded by the words and behaviour of her mother and grandmother.
To say anymore would be to spoil and reading Hellfire is an experience best fresh and unencumbered by others' impressions. I am thoroughly satisfied with it, even the ending.