"Every New Yorker has a 9/11 story," according to Chuck, the narrator of H.M. Naqvi's engrossing novel "Home Boy." But what Chuck doesn't add is that only some New Yorkers have a post-9/11 story.
Chuck, Jimbo and A.C. are united by their youth and their Pakistani background. Jimbo is first-generation American, A.C. is an immigrant and Chuck has a temporary work visa. They love New York: "After you have discovered...that the best goddamn falafel joint in the city is Mamum's in the West Village, and after you have forged relationships with the local newspaper vendor and the good folks at a 24-hour grocery story named Duane Reade, you get this feeling that the inner life of the city still eludes. You feel that you're missing out, that at any given moment, day or night, there's an epic party taking place to which you have not been invited. ... Later I would realize that the best parties in the city took place... in parks, on sidewalks and boardwalks; and that there's a party on the street every day."
Then 9/11 happens and everything is changed. A fight breaks out at a speakeasy with white guys who call them Arabs; a friend has disappeared; suddenly they are detained for suspicious behavior. The plot turns on this arrest, one small example of the hundreds of unconstitutional detentions of Muslims after 9/11.
However, the novel is not so much about these abuses as it's a lucid exploration of the disillusionment that even well educated, sophisticated immigrants can experience. This is the country where anything is possible, where anyone can make it, and where it only matters who you are, not where you are from. This seems true to Chuck until the Twin Towers come down. As fair-skinned Pakistanis, they are good candidates for becoming "real" (i.e., white) Americans, just like Jimbo's dad, who "passed for Italian in Bensonhurst, Greek in Astoria, Russian in Brighton, Jewish on the Upper West Side."
But the three friends' lives were already falling apart. A.C. spends his time doing drugs and pontificating on post-modernism; Jimbo is on the verge of losing his upper-crust girlfriend; and Chuck's lost his job at an investment bank and is driving a cab.
After his detention, Chuck remembers how an African-American friend told him that black men had to adhere to a 'tacit code' about how to behave. "Roger's heartfelt spiel did not make sense to me then. You could have attributed his earnest indignation to misunderstandings, miscommunication, misplaced sensitivity...In prison, I finally...understood that just like three black men were gangbangers, and three Jews a conspiracy, three Muslims had become a sleeper cell. And later, much later, the pendulum would swing back, and everybody would celebrate progress...There would be ceremonies, public apologies, cardboard displays."
Chuck's well-constructed story comes through with deep feeling, his narrative sprinkled with unobtrusive metaphors. Jersey City, where Jimbos father lives, is "Manhattan gone awry," where "you can see the Statue of Liberty's backside." As a DJ, Jimbo mixes cuts from the "Wizard of Oz" into Afropop; Chuck always expects to see him "followed either by loping Munchkins on a good day or by the Wicked Witch of the West." And while George W. is never mentioned by name, the neighborhood described as New York City's heart of darkness is Bushwick.
The title comes from an incident where Chuck is waiting for A.C. to buy drugs: "As I paced the trash-strewn sidewalks, dodging rats the size of kittens, I caught the attention of a squat gangbanger, hanging back on the stoop with his crew... 'Yo, homeboy,' he had called out, 'you wanna tattoo?'... I remember trembling, wondering: Am I a home boy?" Or, as Jimbo's girlfriend puts it: "You guys are like one way here, like hardcore, homeboys, whatever, but when you guys go home, you become different, all proper and conservative."
Chuck, when arrested, is not "tortured," just kept in solitary confinement under continuous bright lights, in a cell with an overflowing toilet, and smacked around by the guards. His interrogator even seems to believe that he's just a nice boy from Karachi. Still, he comes out terrified and humiliated. A.C. and Jimbo aren't so lucky.
Chuck has a choice between leaving New York or making his life there. He has a good job lined up and a chance to marry Jimbo's lovely sister: "After producing progeny, we would live out the rest of our days with an SUV in the garage, assorted objets d'art in the drawing room, and a view of a manicured lawn." His decision turns on whether he can accept all he might have to do to become an American. He remembers humming "New York, New York" when he arrived and realizing even then that he "never knew all the words."