Katy Family in Bloomington, MN

Combining the powers of speculation of Kazuo Ishiguro and the sharp social critique of Aravind Adiga, this collection offers readers the ultimate experience of global fiction, stories bound and shaped by Katy, Texas, a place made by oil and capitalism. The stories weave between Bangladeshi characters experiencing the reality of the immigrant experience in America and those still in Bangladesh, wishing for the mythos of the American dream. Katy, an oil-rich suburb of Houston, is the background and ultimate symbol of global capitalism. The stories deliver the reality and impact of isolation, materialism, and the looming climate disaster. With sharp intelligence and humor, Wahhaj explores the oil industry's destructive effect on those who live within Texas and those far beyond its borders. Elizabeth McKenzie, author of
MacGregor Tells the World
and
Stop That Girl,
says, "Wahhaj's stories are addictive--richly observed, thrumming with sly depictions of ambition and hypocrisy, painting a luminous panorama of an American subculture in all its comic and tender complexity."