Devi S. Laskar's absorbing Midnight, at the War spotlights an international reporter facing personal, professional, and global conflicts. Former journalist Laskar credits real-life icons "Christiane Amanpour & Sylvia Poggioli, their tenacity is in part the spark for this novel."
In April 2001, Elena Keppler--at least according to her press badge--lands at her unnamed, predominantly Arabic-speaking destination, only ever referred to as "[--------]." Rather than perpetuating her white father's lineage, she calls herself Rita Das, combining a since-birth nickname with her Bengali mother's surname. Her recent marriage hasn't stopped her from taking far-flung assignments to devastated zones where she reports on "numbers stories"--accounts of deaths, soldiers, women and children, cost of living during wars--all the while sneaking in "more human interest stories" amid functional tallies.
Time with her husband, Sebastian, hardly seems a priority; Rita still regularly seeks out her philandering former lover. She neglects even her most beloved bond, that with her mother: they have "an arrangement" that despite the return of her breast cancer, Mom "will not die until she becomes a grandmother"--although Rita isn't planning motherhood for another five years. But when 9/11 happens just before she's scheduled to fly back to New York, Rita misses her opportunity to say goodbye to Mom because she's compelled to assist local colleagues under fatal threat. When Rita arrives at the hospital, Mom is dead, and that loss further fractures an already tenuous relationship with her father. "I am an orphan," she tells her older brother, dismissing his protestations otherwise.
Tragedies multiply within her intimate circle: her best friend's last appointment was at the World Trade Center and a pair of journalist colleagues are kidnapped and tortured. For a while, domestic assignments keep Rita closer to home until she becomes pregnant, unsure who the father is. She desperately claims an opportunity to escape to [--------] where distance, surrounded by danger and decimation, might finally offer Rita some semblance of clarity.
Throughout her multilayered narrative, Laskar (Atlas of Reds and Blues; Circa) adroitly teases the disturbing early origins for Rita's career choice: "the India trip" at age 11. She deftly dovetails Rita's complicated backstory of race, culture, disconnects, and dysfunction, with the worldwide "perpetual déjà vu of assassinations... hijackings and accidents, Israeli annexations of Palestinian lands, bombings... hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes"--relentlessly unceasing headlines that have undoubtedly left the public numb. Through the tumult happening on the pages, Laskar distills an impressive novel filled with empathy, inspiration, and ultimately hope. --Terry Hong
Shelf Talker: Devi S. Laskar's dynamic Midnight, at the War impressively captures a journalist more capable of reporting on global crises than confronting her own personal chaos.