The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Akhtar, Ayad. Homeland Elegies. Little, Brown and Company, 2020.

Akhtar’s novel is divided into three parts, with each part containing its own set of chapters. The events of the narrative span from the 1960s during Partition in India and Pakistan, to the year 2018, several years into Donald Trump’s first term as the president of the United States. Scenes from the narrative take place in a variety of places such as New York, Pakistan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Texas. The novel is narrated in the first person by Ayad Akhtar, the author’s fictional avatar for himself. Ayad is the American-born son of immigrant Pakistani parents. The novel’s focus is on Ayad’s attempt to reconcile Muslim and Pakistani culture with the American culture amid the racial prejudice and discrimination in the years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The first section of the novel, entitled “Family Politics,” includes portraits of the narrator’s circle of friends and extended family. Ayad begins with a description of his father in the 80s and 90s. In an attempt to assimilate into American culture and lifestyle habits, Ayad’s father, Sikander, leaves his career as a doctor to speculate in real estate. After his enterprise fails, he returns to medicine. During this period, he treats Donald Trump for his heart condition. After his acquaintance with Donald comes to an end, Sikander tries to maintain the hedonistic and consumerist lifestyle he experienced while working with Donald.

Ayad depicts his mother, Fatima, as being the opposite of his father. She rejects American culture, and feels nostalgia for Pakistan. The narrator recalls his mother’s love for a friend of Sikander, Latif, who immigrated to America along with the narrator’s father, but who returns to Pakistan out of a feeling of patriotism when the Soviets begin to invade Afghanistan. The remainder of this section describes some of the narrator’s cousins, uncles, and aunts, including a trip to Pakistan. Ayad describes how these encounters have shaped his own sense of identity.

The second part, entitled “Scranton Memoirs,” uses the narrator’s story of being profiled by a law officer and robbed by a mechanic in Scranton in order to frame his observations of American society and culture. Interspersed in the telling of the Scranton anecdotes, there are recollections of Ayad’s intellectual formation in college, and his musings on the influence of Christianity in America.

The second chapter of this part tells of Ayad’s introduction and relationship with Riaz, a wealthy Muslim-American investor and financier. During this time Ayad is admitted into Riaz’s circle of wealthy and distinguished social contacts. Ayad learns from Riaz the ways that wealth and finance control American society. However after some time enjoying his luxurious and sexually promiscuous lifestyle financed by Riaz, Ayad realizes the meaninglessness of his participation in this privileged sphere of society. Nevertheless, Ayad is made a multi-millionaire by investing his money with Riaz. The political ascendancy of Trump, his mother’s death, and his diagnosis with syphilis mark the end of this phase in Ayad’s life.

The third part of the novel, entitled “Pox Americana,” describes the narrator’s relationship with Asha, a Pakistani-American woman with whom he maintains a romantic relationship and from whom he receives syphilis. Within the narration of his relationship with Asha, Ayad describes his whereabouts on the day of the 9/11 attacks and his experience with racial discrimination.

This section describes the ending of the narrator’s relationship with Asha, as well as the death of the narrator’s mother. The novel’s climactic event is Sikander’s trial for malpractice in a small Wisconsin town. After his trial Sikander gambles away all of his money and decides to return to Pakistan to escape his creditors. Before leaving he introduces Ayad to his mistress Caroline, who is the mother of Ayad’s half-sister. Ayad rejects his father’s gesture, but they are reconciled later when they meet outside near a park.