Mueenuddin's collection of short inter-woven tales is a terrific microcosm of contemporary Pakistan, replete with corruption, suffering, violence, and even some attempts at love. Each story follows the events (we dare not call it destiny) of a single character, servant class through member of the downwardly-mobile "old money" families. And while they vary widely in means, generation, and circumstance, they share two qualities: geography and ill fortune.

One would think that this latter issue is character flaw, and indeed most of who we encounter has a share of angst, corruption, lack of empathy, or downright cruelty. But we also meet those of real virtue, smart in their productivity or ignorant in their dedication to service. Regardless, the makings of character seem impotent against the circumstances which drive them downwards. More, the occupants of Mueenuddin's Pakistani estate--in line with, say, Anderson's Winesburg Ohio or Joyce's Dubliners--seem just as real as representations of the larger country as they are individuals.

Should we live as global-minded free thinkers or local holders of tradition? as entrepreneurs involved in the machinations of statecraft and capitalism or as humble devotees to private virtues? It seems to matter little, in the end: the unscrupulous in power, the entitlement of birth, the enfeeblement of will create a near impossibility for joy or love as we have learned to romanticize it. Characters write and revise their paths until what they have left to value is only the quality of their headstone.

Still, none of this means to dissuade readers from immersing themselves. Yes, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a stark framing of a Pakistan unable to free itself from itself, even while it transitions into modernity. But meeting the characters inside its pages--young struggling women to aging inward-turning men--is every bit equal to meeting an Elizabeth Willard, a Biff Loman, or a boy at Araby.