Anuja Varghese Reviews Rahela Nayebzadah’s Monster Child
Monster Child. Rahela Nayebzadah. Buckrider Books. $20.00 CDN, 192 pp., ISBN 978-1-989496-30-5
Monster, monster.
I am a monster.
This is the refrain that haunts Rahela Nayebzadah’s debut novel Monster Child. Each of her protagonists — Beh, Shabnam, and Alif — experience this self-accusing fear, and each must find their own paths to redemption, even when those paths lead them to places they would rather not go. The intertwined journey of these three siblings — as they cope with the trials of being teenagers and Afghani immigrants alike — the discovery of family secrets, and the aftermath of trauma and loss, make Monster Child an immersive, propulsive read.
The book shifts between the first-person perspectives of each sibling, starting with thirteen-year-old Beh. The first thing we learn about Beh is that she is often told, “You’re a disease, Beh.” It’s not clear who tells her this, or if it is said in jest or in spite (although, among family, the line between the two is easily blurred), but it is clear she carries this label with her. Through Beh’s eyes we are introduced to her Madar and Padar, her “twat of a brother,” and her sister, Shabnam, who cries tears of blood. The family, along with Beh’s uncle and cousin, head out at dawn to slaughter and butcher a sheep for that evening’s dinner party to be held at their home. The imagery Nayebzadah conjures to bring this opening scene to life is violent and visceral, introducing blood as a central theme throughout the story. Yet, at the same time, there is a normalcy to it. We understand Beh as a regular kid in British Columbia who also happens to be burning the hair off a sheep’s severed head in her front yard from time to time. It is in this fraught space between teenage angst and family tradition that Beh suffers a sexual assault at her cousin’s hands, solidifying the certainty that she is the disease, the monster child. This festering secret, and the shame and rage it fuels, set into motion a chain of events that threatens to tear Beh’s world apart.
From Beh, we shift to Shabnam’s perspective. Shabnam is the eldest, the andar (“step” as in stepsister, stepdaughter, etc.), born to her father’s first wife, born with green eyes that cry blood. Canadian doctors consider her a medical mystery, her community calls her cursed, and Shabnam herself wonders how her birth mother — a beauty — could have created such a monster. Her feelings of being monstrous are further shaped by the strict gender roles and prescriptions her culture imposes. Shabnam says, “If being born an Afghani girl is a curse, growing into an Afghani woman is a bigger curse… especially since women’s bodily – and bloody – leakages are flat out considered najis (impure).” Through her tears, her burgeoning womanhood, and her fixation on the mother she never knew, we see how blood becomes a throughline in Shabnam’s story, both binding her to and setting her apart from her family.
Finally, we come to Alif’s perspective. As the only son, Alif isn’t protected/restricted the same way his sisters are, but with that freedom comes a burden of a different sort. About his parents, Alif notes, “Madar and Padar came to Canada with nothing but stories, lies and secrets.” When Alif bears witness to an act of domestic violence, he is inadvertently drawn into this tangled web of things kept hushed up and hidden away. He faces a choice between secrecy and betrayal, and the repercussions of his decision force him to wonder whether it is in fact he who is the monster in the family. The book ends, somewhat abruptly, just as truths are beginning to surface, leaving Alif with unanswered questions about who he is, who he trusts, and whose blood runs in his veins.
“What’s wrong with us? Why do we keep so many secrets?” Beh asks, and it is a question that echoes throughout the pages of the book. As a child of immigrants myself, and someone who grew up in a tight-knit community of brown people in small-town Ontario, I felt instantly familiar with the struggles of these characters — with the nonchalant racism, the complicated intersections between individuality and community, and the way that seemingly harmless secrets and lies can spiral into lifelong wounds. In Monster Child, Nayebzadah brings all of these together to craft a sensitive and sharply observed portrayal of an Afghani-Canadian family in turmoil, effectively balancing grief with forgiveness, and hurt with love. It is a book that examines bonds of blood and dares readers to ask which is the greater foe — the monsters in the world around us, or the monsters lurking within.
Anuja Varghese is a Pushcart-nominated writer based in Hamilton, ON. Her work appears in Hobart, The Malahat Review, Plenitude Magazine, THIS Magazine, and others. She recently completed a collection of short stories and is at work on a debut novel while pursuing a Creative Writing Certificate from the University of Toronto. Anuja is also a professional grant writer and editor, and in 2021, took on the role of Fiction Editor with The Puritan Magazine. Find Anuja on Twitter , Instagram or through her website.