The Reluctant Fundamentalist

A Pakistani man named Changez meets with an American man while at a café in his native homeland in the town of Lahore and shares the story of his life while in the US.  Changez attends Princeton University on scholarship and flourishes there playing soccer, until an injury stops him from continuing, but he bonds well with his very smart American counterparts.  Changez is a smart man who battles to get to the top of his class, working three jobs on the side, never letting on that he is not from a family of money.  When finance season hiring begins in his senior year, he sets his sights high for a company called Underwood Samson, which hires ten newly minted bachelor degree students each year.  Changez, during a grueling interview, gets hired by the interviewer, Jim, who shared similar financial struggles while attending Princeton two decades previously.  Prior to beginning work, he meets a young woman, Erika, while on a group vacation in Greece (he used his “signing bonus” to join his friends) whom he is immediately attracted.  Erika is a promising young author and eventually the two begin to date. Simultaneously Changez shares the challenges of the new company, its training programs, and life outside of work.  Erica and Changez’s relationship deepens but suddenly she withdraws from him after sharing the fact that her first boyfriend died of cancer and she has never recovered.  She goes into a deep depression and is finally hospitalized.  During this time the 9/11 terror attacks occur.  Changez’s Middle Eastern heritage makes him feel very uncomfortable as he is often targeted as someone who could be a terrorist.  When things get tough at work, he decides to go back home to Lahore where he becomes a University professor teaching Finance.  He is seen as an activist against US policy and students look to him as their role model.  He advocates non-violence response to his students but one of his students gets apprehended for attempting to assassinate a US dignitary.  As the conversation about Changez’s life comes to an end, the two men walk home towards the hotel the US man is staying at.  As the scene ends, the US man reaches for something in his pocket (a metal instrument) that has a shine to it.  The novel ends as he reaches for it leaving the reader to wonder if it is a gun?  Was he going to assassinate Changez?  We are left to guess what happens.  I like story that leave the reader guessing.  This is an engaging story that shares the “other side” of the foreigner’s experience.  It is a short story that reads very fast.  Liked the way it was presented as well.