Witness
by Carrie Brown
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Vintage
General Fiction (Adult)Hector's girlfriend, Azmina, is a head-scarf-wearing Muslim who plans to get rid of the scarf although Hector likes it. She tends clean his apartment, an apartment he paid extra to have his own room. He would like that they went somewhere else. Her brothers would not approved of his relationship. Meanwhile, Hector fears his roommates snooping around his room and his girlfriend finding out he's not only undocumented but not good at school since she is about to go to college.
There is no plot here. I read it three or four times to be sure (recently--I'd read it a few time earlier). Random things happen like meeting Jehovah's Witnesses preaching about life and the end of the world.
But it is a layered experience where "witness" takes on several different shades, and Hector as an impoverished immigrant hungry to get ahead, ready to help himself. I will say those last words are meant for the reader, not words occurring to Hector as he hasn't exactly been building up to this. Still it's an interesting read once you figure out what you're reading for, and I gave the game away, so have at it. Recommended for literary types only.
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