Anything Goes

Adib Khan’s fourth novel mirrors many of the concerns of his second, Solitude of Illusions (1997). Like Khalid in that novel, Martin Godwin in Homecoming looks back over a life that could have been better lived and a moral trajectory that has long since been deflected by one key event. Martin reflects on what could have been different and is tortured by what he sees as his own hypocrisy and cowardice. These attitudes to the past have repercussions for the future as his relationship with his son, again like Khalid’s, is characterised by guilt and misunderstanding. More broadly – and this is a feature of all Khan’s novels – there is a crucial disconnection between the older generation’s way of doing things and the ways of the next. This structure of present guilt and past actions (and inaction) results in novels that shuttle, sometimes a little awkwardly, between flashbacks and the present.

In most other ways, however, Homecoming is a departure for Khan. A long-term Australian resident, Khan is a native of Bangladesh. His previous novels have always been focused on characters and settings on the subcontinent. The new novel reveals no trace of his interest in Indian and Pakistani culture, and only a minimal concern with the displacement experienced by migrants. Instead, the displacement at issue in Homecoming is that of a native Australian who cannot fit into the culture around him.