In her first fiction offering since her 2013 debut novel, Foreign, Sonora Jha (How to Raise a Feminist Son) confronts the inequities inside the Ivory Tower in the astutely provoking, deeply disturbing, and unexpectedly delightful The Laughter.
Her protagonist, Oliver (Ollie) Edward Harding, 56, is a divorced, white, tenured English professor in Seattle. His philandering with colleagues and students was egregious enough, but his sexual violation of his wife cemented their divorce. Lately, Ollie has fallen in lust with recently hired Ruhaba Khan, a law professor specializing in the incarceration of Black women in the U.S. She's a single, independent Pakistani Muslim who chooses to wear a hijab. The 2016 election looms. Clinton's assumed lead doesn't mitigate the palpable undertow of anti-immigrant, anti-terrorist, and particularly anti-Muslim rhetoric. And then Ruhaba's 15-year-old nephew, Adil, arrives from France for an indefinite stay.
Jha is an extraordinary storyteller, aiming her shrewd erudition and humor directly at elitism, sexism, and racism. As Ollie insists that he's "not one to trifle with the truth," his unmistakable delusions, especially of (white, male, privileged) grandeur, provide dazzling fodder for a spectacularly illuminating read. --Terry Hong