Book Review: Behind Picket Fences

By Saadia Faruqi

A quiet neighborhood in an unnamed city in the United States, each home filled with a different family dynamic. It could be my street, filled with tall homes and tightly shut windows. Don’t we all wonder what goes on inside those silent houses, behind those white fences and neatly trimmed front yards?

Author Hend Hegazi takes us into a diverse, contemporary neighborhood, onto a street with four houses next to each other. We get to know intimately four families of varying ages, ethnic backgrounds and faith traditions. Yet this is not a superficial glance, but an in-depth look at the lives of each of the four families. It shows us pictures of grief and sorrow, heartache due to bad decisions, innocent children and not-so-innocent adults.

Hegazi has a way of telling stories that have a deeper message, without seeming patronizing. What we learn from this novel is that tragedy can strike anyone at any time, but that we come together in unusual ways to help and support our neighbors. For every reader, the main story may be different. For me, the household of May and Hasan, their children and Hasan’s mother, were the story it all revolved around. This is a Muslim family, like so many Muslim American families across the country. Tragedy strikes when May is diagnosed with leukemia. At the same time the other neighbors are going through their own troubles: Summer and Porter are going through an extra-marital affair, Mariam and Morgan are facing financial troubles, Sidra and Faris are going through a ton of jealousy and miscommunication. Of them all, May and Hasan seem the most real, the true meat of the novel.

Behind Picket Fences is a look at a diverse, contemporary America – warts and all. It shows us the best and worst of the human experience, and offers a hope that like the lives of the four families, we can all have some semblance of closure after the most horrific of experiences. A great addition to the rapidly growing Islamic Fiction category.

Behind Picket Fences is now available on Amazon.