Millions Millions • [Mohsin] Hamid is best-known for his second novel,...

[Mohsin] Hamid is best-known for his second novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Moth Smoke, recently re-released by Riverhead, was his first. The plotting is masterful, especially for a first novel; Hamid’s shifts in perspective are effective, and while we know from the courtroom scene at the beginning that a child will be killed, we don’t know which one, which makes the appearance of every child in these pages an event fraught with peril. Moth Smoke was published to considerable critical acclaim in 2000, which is to say after Pakistan tested its first nuclear weapons, and the arms race between Pakistan and India form the jittery backdrop to Daru’s long goodbye.

Emily St. John Mandel, “Invisible Borders: Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke.”