Duty Free: A Novel

Funny commentary on life in a very different but newly rich. & hence cosmopolitan with a seeming disregard of local terrorists--- just keep shopping

"Lahore has just three problems: traffic, terrorists, and smog. Otherwise tau it's just fab," states the nameless heroine of Moni Mohsin's debut American novel, Duty Free. With this line early in the book, author Mohsin sets the tone for her frothy story.The heroine, a member of the high society of Lahore, Pakistan, receives a charge from an aunt: find my son a new wife, the aunt says on a fine day at the end of September, and make sure he gets married by the end of the year. Engaging emotional blackmail, the heroine's aunt leaves our main girl no choice. What ensues is a humorous examination of the upper echelons of social life. After all, a girl may be charged to find someone a wife but she can't do without her designer wear now, can she?"I'm wearing my new cream Prada shoes I got from Dubai, so everyone can see and my new cream outfit I've had made to match," she says, on describing getting ready for a social outing. "I put on green contacts (blue is so past it) and my new Tom Ford red lipstick and now I'm looking just like Angelina Jolly. But like her healthier, just slightly older sister. I know I shouldn't do my own praises but facts are facts, no?"Mohsin's story intertwines several elements that will sound familiar to South Asian readers: the obligation one feels towards one's family, even if said family manipulates you; using major social events to hunt for potential brides; the struggle between older generations who cling to notions of class and background and younger generations who overlook such ideas for the chance of true love. Yes, South Asian readers will smile in some places and nod along at others in Duty Free.Non-South Asian readers may not necessarily understand all of the heroine's exclamations or usage of expressions that South Asian readers will immediately get. Mohsin definitely has chosen to camp on that side of the cultural line with this decision, so non-South Asian readers may lose the full effect of the heroine's thoughts and exchanges with other characters. But by the same token those same readers will still appreciate the heroine's naiveté and thoroughly enjoy exploring Lahore through her eyes.Duty Free is over the top exactly when it needs to be and self-absorbed in all the right places, although it's not entirely without fault. Mohsin's story drags just a little bit in the middle; she uses many scenes to establish the heroine's character and point of view on life, and the book could have done just as well without some of those scenes. The story dawdles because of them. But these scenes have the same overall effect that a school zone does: slowing readers down long enough to cause some mild irritation and maybe even a little bit of boredom but still allowing readers to move forward and reach their final destination.Writing in a tone and with a plot reminiscent of Anjali Banerjee's work, Moni Mohsin has a winner on her hands withDuty Free.

Moni Mohsin's DUTY FREE is a contemporary romantic comedy of manners set in contemporary Lahore, Pakistan. Our heroine (does she ever name herself?) must help her cousin Jonkers, whom she was raised with, find a good wife as his first marriage ended in divorce due to his first wife's lower class origins -- or as Mohsin puts it, "lack of bagground." The heroine is an upper-class woman of Lahore who hates the Taliban, hates terrorism with a passion (she calls them "beardo-weirdos"), and wishes very much that things were different, but we only see this in bits and flashes whenever she feels the need to discuss these problems in her diary. (There's also a clever touch of "news headlines" at the top of every page, something like, "Pakistan waits for peace" or "12 killed at wedding due to terrorist bomb," which points out more subtly exactly what our heroine is dealing with.)At any rate, our heroine's Aunt Pussy wants her son, Jonkers, to marry a woman who's worthy of him, but as his first choice, Shumaila, was dreadful (not just a lower class social climber, she also didn't use "deodrant"), Pussy doesn't really believe that Jonkers can find anyone worthy of his time, which is why our heroine is involved.We see several society weddings; we also see our heroine's difficult relationship with her own husband, Janoo (it was an arranged marriage), her son, Kulchoo, and her fractured syntax (she's so proud of speaking English, but it's not exactly a dialect I've ever seen rendered before in any English-speaking print medium). All of this is reminiscent of Jane Austen's EMMA, where there's a heroine who thinks far too much of herself, is a socialite, believes she can make marriages happen (or at least relationships), and believes she knows better than anyone even though when each novel starts, the heroine in each case is as shallow as the day is long.Over time, though, both heroines are redeemed; also, in both cases, the milieu is being satirized by the sharp and careful eye of the writer in question. So to my mind, Austen's EMMA is a fair comparison (though a great deal to live up to) with Mohsin's DUTY FREE due to its satire, and due to the well-disguised tender-heartedness of the heroine.I enjoyed DUTY FREE, but it took time to wade through the heroine's odd dialect. (That no one uses her name doesn't help, either; her cousin Jonkers calls her "Apa," meaning elder sister, and that's as close of a name as we really get.) The setting is one that's not been used all that often -- contemporary Pakistan, and Lahore at that rather than Islamabad (or "Isloo," as our heroine says) -- and it's an apt one, one that throws into sharp relief the commonality of all human souls as they look for love, sometimes in all the wrong places.Best of all, I rooted for our heroine as well as Jonkers; they both were well-drawn characters and I sympathized with them greatly.Fine and funny, DUTY FREE is well worth your time to read if you can only get past the odd and sometimes off-putting dialect of "our heroine."Four stars, recommended within limits.Barb Caffrey

Butterfly is utterly shallow and a modern day Marie Antoinette but she has a perfect foil in her precious Janoo. Moni Mohsin is an amazing writer with a remarkable ability to cast a satirical eye at modern day Pakistani society and to a certain extent at butterflies counterparts in Dubai/Russia/India and London. Keep writing Ms. Mohsin.

This version is not as good as the other two in this series. Maybe it's because this is intended for a Western audience, but most of the Urdu-English mixture Butterfly talks and thinks in is very watered down. Didn't laugh nearly as much as I did while reading the other two.

It was exact repetition of part from”tender Hooks “ her other book I read , not fair I spend money on 2 books .