A sprawling, madcap tale set in Karachi, Pakistan, The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack brings one of the biggest cities in the world to life through the hilariously skewed perspective of a 70-year-old aesthete. Abdullah, the narrator and protagonist of The Selected Works, is a man who has managed to spring through life doing very little, and leaving even less of a wake behind him. Now, at the beginning of his eighth decade, a chain of events causes his precarious peace to be upended, and the do-nothing has a great deal to do.
A long-time resident of his father's old house, which he shares with his younger brother and his family, Abdullah learns his relatives are aiming to sell the property out from under him. On the very same day, he is inexplicably saddled with a ward, a young man by the name of Bosco with the heart of a poet and a troubled family history. As events tumble forward, Abdullah runs afoul of a powerful mafioso in Karachi and the political machinations of his own family, meanwhile stumbling into a love affair unlike any he's ever known.
What makes The Selected Works so engaging is Abdullah's voice. Chronicling his life with footnotes, academic asides and a fair amount of self-abasement, Abdullah is a hilarious narrator, and one the reader grows to love. Naqvi keeps the plot churning and characters interesting, but Abdullah makes the novel truly shine. --Noah Cruickshank, director of communications, Forefront, Chicago, Ill.