The Dissident Club Chronicle of a Pakistani journalist in exile

Pakistani reporter Siddiqui's bracing graphic memoir, drawn by French cartoonist Maury (Out of Focus), doubles as an account of the Middle East's descent into religious violence. A dramatic frame narrative starts things off with a bang, depicting Siddiqui's terrifying attempted kidnapping by armed men in Islamabad in 2018. Circling back to a quieter time, he describes his childhood in Saudi Arabia, where his Pakistani immigrant parents had relocated for work. Siddiqui's upbringing was both lucky (his family was prosperous) and increasingly fraught (his once secular father began to impose extremist Islamic rules at home). The family returned to Pakistan after the first Gulf War, where Siddiqui's young adulthood is a cavalcade of typical teen rebellions (drifting from Islam, discovering hashish) whose stakes are raised to life or death by political and religious tensions (his first date turns from cute to terrifying when a mob attacks, presuming Siddiqui and the girl he's with are an unmarried couple kissing). His reporting during the iron-fisted rule of President Pervez Musharraf provides an outlet for his disillusionment but leads to self-doubt: "Is this what journalism is? Counting the dead?" Maury's fluid, zippy artwork brings a whimsical spirit to the often-sardonic narration. The result is a timely tribute to the dangerous and crucial work of journalism. (Apr.)

Speaking truth to power in a repressive regime. Siddiqui grew up like many boys around the world--he dreamed of superheroes, played soccer with friends, and took an interest in girls. Not every kid, however, has a father who becomes radicalized in his religious beliefs, a man who throws away his son's comic books and is incensed upon learning that there are girls in his classroom--both sure signs of Satan's presence, he says. As for soccer, best not to play it during afternoon prayers, when the Muttawa--the religious police--hunt you down in police cruisers and, if they catch you, beat you with sticks and shave your head to mark you as someone who has broken religious laws. That is, unless you happen to escape by hopping over a wall and hiding in what you learn is the empty compound of none other than Osama bin Laden. Such is Siddiqui's upbringing in Saudi Arabia as the free-spirited child of Pakistani Muslim parents who moved to the kingdom in the 1980s in search of a better life. Siddiqui chronicles his eventful life story in a fast-paced graphic memoir that jumps from the author's early years in Jeddah to his journey of becoming a prominent journalist in Pakistan who is critical of the Islamic republic's oppressive military rule. There's a lot of heavy subject matter in the book--Siddiqui's life is threatened, and colleagues are killed--but he can be very funny, as when recounting a youthful infatuation that can't bode well: "Oh, shit! I'm falling in love with a Shiite!" Or when his ever-critical father shares some news with his wife: "You hear that?" he bellows. "Your son won a TV prize! Shame upon us!" Credit also goes to Maury, a former French military officer whose lively and expressive artwork graces these pages; it's the artist's first work published in English. A Pakistani journalist's rousing look back at years of strife. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.