Defamer, a Los Angeles gossip blog, publishes a reader’s report about an Indian-themed party at Brian Grazer’s house. The celebration was in honor of a new book by Cheryl Howard Crew, the wife of Ron Howard:
The whole affair was abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous with an Indian theme (seems as if the book, which I didn’t take, is about an American girl who travels in India) and beautiful Indian dancers doing their thang all over the backyard. But I did feel bad for the poor catering staff, who were all white girls subjected to the torture of wearing saris and showing off their not-quite-brown stomachs. Thankfully the Grey Goose on tap allowed me to forget all my sympathy. [Defamer]
Crew’s novel, “In
the Face of Jinn,” carries
the following
description:
Two American sisters, Christine and Elizabeth Shepherd, are on a silk-buying trip in India for their business in California. After Elizabeth mysteriously disappears, Christine is compelled to challenge the ineffectual U.S. and Indian bureaucracies and venture alone, with various strangers as guides, to find her sister. Disguised in the traditional female garb of some Islamic cultures, Christine continues her search in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She navigates the mysterious tribes of the Pashtuns, has a dangerous encounter with the Taliban, and learns to fear the “Jinn,” the devils that dominate the superstitions of the people she must understand in order to survive. Inspired by her own extensive travel throughout the region, Cheryl Howard Crew has written an unforgettable story with a strong determined heroine who rises powerfully from the pages of this novel. [St. Martin’s Press]
Don’t know anything about the book, but do have a sincere plea for Ron Howard: Please, please, please don’t let Fox cancel “Arrested Development.” That is all.
I have to say, the book sounds dire
From an article in Variety.com
Cheryl Howard Crew says that while she was researching her new novel, “In the Face of Jinn” — about a woman who disappears in the borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan –she watched every “Arabian Nights”-inspired pic she could get her hands on.
What? Arabian Nights? She watched Arabian Nights style films to get the knowledge on Pakistan and Afghanistan? She watches movies of Arabia to get a feel for Soth Asia?
Later, she says,
“I kept it as authentic as possible,” she said, “but it was very easy for it to be a page-turner.”
hahaha @ ‘as authentic as possible’
Here is a salad of confusion that passes for lots of white americans understanding of India/Arabia/Whatever
The genre of her book party was Casbah cool, with pulsating Indian-inflected dance music, carved Buddhas and pools sprinkled with flower petals.
So you’ve got North African Morroccan Casbah mixed with Indian music and Buddha statues for a book about Pakistan and Afghanistan influenced by The Arabian Nights tsyle bellydancing-Sinbad movies
Phukkin clueless!!
Buddha Bar. Been there, hit that. :-^
Let me guess … the sister was finally discovered wearing harem garb tied to a post in the confines a spacious camel-hide tent which could only be entered with knowledge of the secret password “Iftah, ya bargain bin.”
Ditto your sentiment on Arrested Development– if they can bring back the Family Guy, anything is possible…
I agree that reading Arabian Nights is ludicrous preparation for writing about Modern South Asia, but much of it is set there—Scheherezade’s is supposed to be in “India” I think—and its one of the original sources for South Asia’s super-exotic image. If you wanted to write a novel purposefully knowledgable about South Asian exoticism that would work.
Somehow I don’t think that’s what she was doing.
She’s writing about an American woman getting kidnapped by the Taliban, sets the book in India Pakistan and Afghanistan, and she reads the freakin’ Arabian Nights, so that she could make it ‘authentic’??
I’m laughing like a hyena!! Its too funny!!
Good find Punjabi Boy. Orientalism is alive and well apparently.
Ahh, but that’s what Adult Swim is for–to keep our favorite shows percolating until stupid network executives realize that they’re good.
I don’t think Orientalism ever left, its silly business, that book is so on target….swarthy men, that book tells you what we look like to clueless people everywhere