Midnight, at the War - by Devi S Laskar (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Inspired by journalists Christiane Amanpour and Sylvia Poggioli, Midnight, at the War is a novel about a reporter chasing the biggest story of her career as she contends with a tense newsroom, a dangerous global conflict, and all the problems she's running away from at home, by the acclaimed novelist that Megha Majumdar calls "a gem of a writer."

Foreign correspondent Rita Das has left New York for the war-torn Middle East, a reassignment she asks for after she learns she is pregnant and is uncertain whether the father is her husband or her lover. As she strives to shed light on the fallouts of the war, Rita finds herself embroiled in her own conflicts with her interpreter and her news editor, her sources and her colleagues. She is unable to accept the loss of her mother and deal with her guilt for not being at her side when she died.

Fiercely independent and ambitious (and in her journalism, deeply humane), Rita is also in denial about her need for intimate human relationships. As she goes into the field to report on the war, she grapples with the physical and emotional tolls of her pregnant body and a turbulent region where the numbing repetition of war slides suddenly into horror. When her news editor delivers urgent orders for her to return to New York, Rita is faced with a choice about how she wants to live her life as a journalist and a soon-to-be mother.

Set in the years immediately after 9/11, and drawn from Devi Laskar's own experience as a government reporter in the 1990s and early aughts, Midnight, at the War is an exploration of love and grief, of moral ambiguity and forgiveness, of modern war and the wars we wage within ourselves.

Review Quotes

"Laskar skillfully portrays the burden of loss and longing in lives defined by trauma." -- Washington Post (on Circa)

"[A] tight, insightful novel... By following Heera from high school to adulthood, the author teases out nuanced tensions...A heartbreaking examination of family ties." -- Kirkus Reviews (on Circa)

"Circa tells beautifully of the confines of grief, the courage that love compels, and the friendship that is at the heart of every enduring relationship. Devi Laskar is a gem of a writer." -- Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning (on Circa)

"A subtle exploration of fate and free will. Keen as a seismologist, Devi S. Laskar traces the reverberations of a violent accident in the life of a young American-Bengali woman from her teen years straddling cultures in suburban North Carolina through her marriage in New York City. Lyrical and defiant, a beautiful and surprising work." -- Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Chimes of a Lost Cathedral (on Circa)

"It takes place in a morning; it covers a lifetime." -- Booklist (starred review) (on The Atlas of Red and Blues)

"As narratively beautiful as it is brutal ... I've never read a novel that does nearly as much in so few pages." -- Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestselling author of Heavy (on The Atlas of Reds and Blues)

"The Atlas of Reds and Blues is a quick read, in part, because of these short sections, some only two sentences long. But it's a page-turner, too, because of the urgency of each small story, each revelatory memory . . . If The Atlas of Reds and Blues and the lyric, thematic and structural care the author has lent it are an experiment, then it is certainly a successful one." -- Ilana Masad, The Washington Post (on The Atlas of Reds and Blues)

"[A] devastating, poetic debut about racism in Trump's America . . . A powerfully written novel . . . Laskar never seems to polemicise; instead she gravely turns traumatic memories into fragments of poetry, floating in the ether, fighting for survival." -- Nikesh Shukla, The Guardian (on The Atlas of Reds and Blues)

"The entire novel takes place over the course of a single morning . . . and the effect is devastatingly potent." -- Marie Claire, The Best Women's Fiction of the Year (on The Atlas of Reds and Blues)

"Laskar's use of vignettes to comment on weighty topics like racism and sexism recalls Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street . . . Like Cisneros, Laskar varies the tone of her vignettes; some are sad or angry while others are humorous, and their power is collective." -- Anita Felicelli, Bustle (on The Atlas of Reds and Blues)

"Laskar has written a searing and powerful novel about the second-generation immigrant experience, making clear the ways in which America terrorizes its own people. It's a violent look at a violent place, and you'll feel forever changed for having read it." -- Kristin Iversen, NYLON, 1 of 50 Books You'll Want to Read This Year (on The Atlas of Reds and Blues)

"A propulsive, devastating book that blends fiction and personal experience." -- Elizabeth Sile, Real Simple (on The Atlas of Reds and Blues)

"A novel of identity . . . One of the beauties of this accomplished first novel is its simple and delicate structure." -- Meg Waite Clayton, San Francisco Chronicle (on The Atlas of Reds and Blues)