BOOK - A PEBBLE IN THE THROAT BY AASMAH MIR
A Pebble In The Throat
Growing Up Between Two Continents
by
Aasmah Mir
Headline 2023
Amazon link let's you have a peek inside:
My favourite book genre is memoir. I have read quite a few in my time. Some such books hit the spot with honesty, emotion, humour and great storytelling technique. Others come across as self-serving yawn-fests of self-praise and faux-saintliness. A Pebble in the Throat is firmly in the first category. It is up with very best memoirs I have ever read. In fact, it could well be the best memoir I have ever read.
It is, as part of the blurb reads – “Two generations, two places and two stories in unison.”
It skilfully interweaves the story of Aasmah’s mother and family in Pakistan with Aasmah’s and her family’s move to Scotland, specifically Glasgow. The time period broadly is the 1950s to the 1980s.
This is Aasmah’s story really but she has chosen cleverly to include her family’s history because the past is part of her, what influenced and shaped her – Glasgow-born and proud of her Pakistani heritage as well as her Scottishness.
The book has lots of wonderful detail about domestic matters, describing the challenges, joys, ups and downs of family life. The details are essential and never overpowering. The descriptions are vivid. But there is no ducking the shyness and racism that enveloped Aasmah’s young years in Glasgow. The colour of her skin made her a target for disgusting insults and ignorant remarks from other kids, sometimes in situations that threatened to turn violent. Fortunately, it was mainly verbal abuse but unnerving nonetheless.
Examples of struggles included a great fear of mixing with white children, even to the extent of not wanting to go into a shop in case somebody made an unkind remark, or worse. Or attempts by kids to try to rub the brown off Aasmah’s skin or mistaking the brown for a tan.
Aasmah (at around 11) writes: “Something I never really noticed before is becoming an issue almost every day. I am starting to realise that life would be much simpler if I looked like everyone else.” What pressure on a young girl!
So, two generations, two places, two stories, two journeys and one imaginative, compelling, brilliant book that deserves high praise and a pedestal at the top of bestseller lists.
What a writer!
Bravo, Aasmah Mir. Thank you for your story and powerful insights into your family’s history.
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