Washerman`s Dog

"Washermen's dogs" is an Indian expression for dispossessed people, for immigrants who have abandoned not only their homelands, but their identities as well. This book is a look into the lives of South Asian and Middle Easterner outcasts who find themselves in the ghettoes of America at the worst time possible: the aftermath of 9-11. Specifically, this is the story of Neil, his family, and his acquaintances, all lost in America as if in some great wilderness. Naturally proud, Neil is traumatized by his experiences and theirs, learning and relearning that once one is poor, it is difficult to be anything else. And so Neil watches passively as mysteriously, randomly his friends and family meet disastrous ends. He is immobilized by terror and something resembling schadenfreude. In this anti coming-of-age chronicle, time matures, but rarely. In the ghettoes especially, where immigrants try to survive in an increasingly hostile America, the passage of time more usually simply enervates.