Thus begins novelist Zain Khalid’s debut, Brother Alive, a smooth interleaving of science-fiction with high-resolution realism and hallucinatory phantasmagoria. It is already clear that Brother will be with him for the rest of his life. “Time unwinds and winds.” And with Youssef lurks a still-shadowed presence-first a beetle, then a child, but still somehow neither-which Youssef later names “Brother.” Whatever it, or he, is, this Brother is certainly significant: His name is Youssef’s first word, and this, in turn, is the first thing he has chosen to tell us, here, before the first chapter. It feels like night the words tumble over each other like night. Or near a mosque, at least and the Imam is there. (Later, we learn that the kid’s name is Youssef.) We’re in a mosque, in the kitchen. The kid can’t see us, not now but in the future, he knows we’re here, for he, narrating, has brought us in. We’re in someone’s kitchen a kid is sitting on the floor.
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