2nd Generation Refugee$$

Ismail’s Novel, Hyper, Explores Paths Through Western Materialism

★★★★½

This remarkable novel by Agri Ismail came to me from my daughter Carolyn, whose subscription to Coffee House Press introduces her to books she might not ever find on her own. For both of us, Hyper is a happy discovery.

On the surface it’s about a Kurdish refugee family scattered after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, with adult siblings living disconnected across London, Dubai, New York, and Iraq. But it doesn’t feel like “an important refugee novel.” While their stories are grounded in dislocation, the novel is wonderfully alive, funny, contemporary, and deeply human.

Ismail paints a fascinating tale of how each sibling deals with money. This isn’t a novel about money, but it is central to each character’s lives. One strives within a brutally competitive London financial house. Another drifts, newly divorced and poor, through the air-conditioned excess of Dubai. Each of the three are trying to build their life, yet none of them are centered or at home.

The family father treasures his radio’s secret compartment.

This is a literary novel, with each sibling’s story narrated differently, giving the novel a rhythm that amplifies the theme of family fragmentation. That structural doesn’t at all diminish the book’s humor and readability.

I was reminded of Zadie Smith (White Teeth ★★★★★) and Mohsin Hamid (Exit West ★★★★★, and How to Get Filty Rich in Rising Asia ★★★★★)—writers who invite us into lives different from our own while making them relatable and sympathetic. Ismail fills this novel with delightful, specific observations: anonymous food deliveries, digital reminders, the sterile feel of modern Dubai, the ruthless culture of finance, even a father’s almost comically inept attempt at terrorism. Those details bring the chapters to life.

While Hyper is about refugees, finance, and family dysfunction, it’s more about people trying to find footing in a world where family, geography, identity, and money pull in different directions.

Highly recommended.