Brother Alive

A Novel

By: Zain Khalid

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi

From a New York Times Writer to Watch This Summer, an astonishing debut novel about family, sexuality, and capitalist systems of control, following three adopted brothers who live above a mosque in Staten Island with their imam father.

In 1990, three boys are born, unrelated but intertwined by circumstance: Dayo, Iseul, and Youssef. They are adopted as infants and share a bedroom perched atop a mosque in one of Staten Island’s most diverse and underserved neighborhoods. The three boys are an inseparable trio but conspicuous: Dayo is of Nigerian origin, Iseul is Korean, and Youssef indeterminately Middle Eastern. Youssef shares everything with his brothers except for one secret: He sees a hallucinatory double, an imaginary friend who seems absolutely real, a shape-shifting familiar he calls Brother. Brother persists as a companion into Youssef’s adult life, supporting him but also stealing his memories and shaking his grip on the world.

The boys’ adoptive father, Imam Salim, is known in the community for his stirring and radical sermons, but at home he often keeps himself to himself, spending his evenings in his study with whiskey-laced coffee, reading poetry or writing letters to his former compatriots back in Saudi Arabia. Like Youssef, he too has secrets, including the cause of his failing health and the truth about what happened to the boys’ parents. When, years later, Imam Salim’s path takes him back to Saudi Arabia, the boys, now adults, will be forced to follow. There they will be captivated by an opulent, almost futuristic world, a linear city that seems to offer a more sustainable modernity than that of the West. But this conversion has come at a great cost, and Youssef and Brother too will have to decide if they should change to survive or try to mount a defense of their deeply held beliefs.

Stylistically brilliant, intellectually acute, and deft in its treatment of complex themes, Brother Alive is a remarkable debut by a hugely talented writer that questions the nature of belief and explores the possibility of reunion for those who are broken.

Design by Kelly Winton

©2022 Zain Khalid. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2022 Audible, Inc.

Thoroughly enjoyed this astonishing debut

Wonderfully narrated, beautifully written story with unforgettable characters. The skill at the sentence level for an author this young is astounding. Highly recommend!

1 hr., 15 min. is all I have to invest in this

I think this author is very talented in some ways. His vocabulary is clearly expansive and his sentences are sophisticated. But, the story he is telling here has thoroughly failed to engage my interest. Perhaps if I invested more time, I may be proven wrong. Rather than looking forward to each successive listening session, I find myself having to talk myself into them like a chore. The narrator has done a fine job, but that isn't enough to salvage this slow, plodding story. It's always disappointing when this happens.