Good Intentions: ‘Captivating and heartbreaking’ Stylist

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If we stop expecting the big male novelists of the 2020s to look like updated big male novelists of the 1980s, there are signs of an exciting new era of fiction by young men. This spring saw the publication of Caleb Azumh Nelson’s Open Water, while in the past year there have been critically acclaimed books from Gabriel Krauze, Sunjeev Sahota and Chris Power. Writers such as Nikesh Shukla, Luke Kennard, James Scudamore and Michael Donkor are hitting their stride, while Garth Greenwell, Brandon Taylor, Bryan Washington and Paul Mendez are producing powerful fiction about queer desire. There are also poets such as Sam Riviere and Will Burns, whose debut novels are expected later this year. And in 2022, 4th Estate’s lead debut is Good Intentions by Kasim Ali, bought as part of a six-figure, two-book deal. This wasn’t the only time I’d been let down like this. Aziz Ansari’s Netflix comedy Master of None left a bitter taste in my mouth. To watch Ansari’s character, modelled on himself, forego Islam, drink alcohol, eat bacon, and have sex only with white women, felt so unlike the life I had lived. When I was writing Good Intentions, I wanted to write about a boy who wasn’t afraid to be physically and emotionally vulnerable with his friends, who would have conversations with men in his life that were open and honest about how he is feeling. And it’s not a bad thing. Because people like that, like I, exist. And there is strength in being in tune with your feelings,” he says. Nolan agrees that this cultural shift has coincided with “a momentous, dramatic influx of young women”. But that’s because “it’s only relatively recent that you could have fiction written by a woman about intimate subjects like sex – and for it to be classed as literary fiction”. Through this deft characterisation, Ali joins the tradition of exemplary British writers exploring topics of interracial and crossed-culture romance (this reviewer himself grew up on the young adult stories from Bali Rai, replete with arranged marriages and star-crossed lovers and the experience of second-generation immigration in modern Britain), while also exploring the inner turmoil between family expectations and deepest desires, between societal pressures and true freedom, and all the costs inherent within.

Kishani Widyaratna, editorial director of one of the UK’s most important literary imprints, 4th Estate, insists men aren’t being discriminated against. However, she does believe there is “a predominance of white, middle-class cis women at all levels of the publishing industry”. Widyaratna thinks that certain “received ideas” do need to be challenged – not least the reliance on “comp titles”, the system by which publishers consider a submission by comparing it to other similar books. The most obvious example of this has been the Sally Rooney phenomenon – in which every publisher rushed to find young female writers to fill what one called the “Rooney-shaped hole”. It got worse when she introduced her son to an array of brown women for him to consider: all of them wearing stereotypical clothes, speaking meekly, and not given any agency. Good Intentions’ is an expression that might epitomise Nur and we enjoy our time with him in this emotive, heartwarming, but also heartbreaking novel.

A sensitive, smooth-toned and absorbingly honest novel that makes us question our inner worlds, at a time when this kind of self-examination might be the thing that saves us' Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People Yet, we also tend to underestimate our parents — a theme Ali highlights in his book. “Sometimes we talk about our parents as being a product of their time and their environment — we think that we have all these ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ ideas of the world and that our parents are not going to be accepting of those opinions,” explains Ali. “I really wanted to talk about the difference in politics between our parents and us and the gap between those dimensions, but I also really wanted to talk about giving our parents a chance to change with us.” Representing modern and multidimensional Muslims

Absorbing, compelling, and beautifully written . Its ending brought me close to tears." —Beth O'Leary, bestselling author of The Flatshare An exploration of the ways that race and family ties may complicate or imperil romance even if everyone means well. A little away from that plot point, I also liked how this book discussed mental health and homophobia. Nur and Hawa both have depression (and Nur anxiety as well) and I thought it was good how it showed that symptoms eased and got worse throughout. Perhaps I would say I’d have liked there to be some discussion of therapy—be that psychological or biological—but I did also like that the book was about characters with mental illnesses but wasn’t about the mental illnesses specifically. With regard to the homophobia, that was more peripheral, but I thought was still dealt with well. I never felt like the book was trying to cover too many topics here—they were all given time and space to be discussed and with nuance. Nolan wonders if it’s “inherently less cool” to be a male novelist these days and thinks men are missing a “cool, sexy, gunslinger” movement in fiction that rivals the scene in the 80s and 90s. “It’s unlikely now that you would have a male novelist on the cover of a non-literary magazine – as in a cultural figure who’s aspirational,” she says.This book was phenomenal. Absolutely brilliant. A philosophical, modern-day classic debut, this novel includes absolutely everything that forms a well-made novel. Dystopian Fiction Books Everyone Should Read: Explore The Darker Side of Possible Worlds and Alternative Futures One of the most eagerly awaited debuts of 2022 . . . Exploring race, romance, and mental health problems with disarming candor . . . [ Good Intentions] is a rather clever novel about vulnerability and victimhood that subtly subverts the reader's expectations.” The only outlier to this trend, Brown suggested, is the Irish writer Rob Doyle, whose second novel, Threshold (2020), is by his own description a “gloves-off, messy exploration of my own damaged male psyche and masculinity itself”. But Doyle believes that as a male novelist writing honestly about sex, “You’re kind of despised. It can feel a bit like having some weird contagion, that you ring a bell when you come into town, and people can clear out.”

When Zauner’s mother dies, she feels she’s losing ties to her parent’s Korean heritage. In an endeavour both to reconnect to that heritage and to honour her mother, she remembers the Korean food of her childhood. Through memories of her sometimes troubled relationship with her mother, including a sustained period of estrangement, Zauner explores themes of cultural dissonance and diaspora, producing a raw and tender portrayal of grief. When I was writing it, it started with the very simple idea of an interracial relationship without a white person. Then all of these complexities arose through the writing itself.” Out of the writing came Imran, “one of my favourite things about Good Intentions”, Ali says. “Like, I love him. I think he is fascinating and really cool and really funny. And I didn’t plan for him. I truly love him so much because he goes through this journey in the book that I did not plan. All I knew was that Nur needed a friend. And then he became this complex character. I didn’t plan for him to be a gay Muslim. When I was writing, it just happened. It just felt right that he was [a gay Muslim].” What I’m really interested in is the question of: do we give our parents a chance to evolve with us? Or do we just accept that they are who they are?Compelling, emotionally honest, and unafraid of the gray areas of race, faith, sexuality, and love. Kasim Ali's debut Good Intentions shows how complicated relationships can be, even with the best of intentions." A love story full of hard choices and tensions, family obligations and racial prejudices. Not to be missed by fans of Modern Love’ Vogue India Talking over the phone from Newcastle—he is visiting from London for a friend’s birthday—he explains how he cried at every episode “because it really moved me” and “that’s the kind of person I am”. A] clever novel about vulnerability and victimhood that subtly subverts the reader’s expectations’ Sunday Times No taboo is off-limits in Kasim Ali's bold and thought-provoking debut. Good Intentions is a necessary addition to literature."