Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love

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I’m sure many others will be able to appreciate them in a way that I was unable to. As things stand I will approach the author’s future work with caution. Qureshi's stories keenly identify the everyday tragedies of feeling profoundly unknown or unheard, of holding secrets and misunderstandings . . . These tales vividly capture the experience of feeling constrained by family expectations, but also of not quite fitting the norms of British culture either . . . Qureshi takes the reader plausibly inside the inner recesses of characters' hearts and minds. Premonition beautifully recalls the intensity of a first crush, developed via "a private symphony of glances", before a bewildering first kiss leads to disaster. And she captures how such incidents can, in adulthood, seem insignificant and still life-defining . . . there are so many striking images to relish. -- Holly Williams ― Observer Well told stories with well realised characters . . . Qureshi, like [Jhumpa] Lahiri, is a companionable and considered writer, and this is a collection you can read enjoyably, rain or shine. -- Shahidha Bari ― Guardian Huma Qureshi writes the inarticulable distances between mothers and daughters, the consuming ache of longing for someone not yet kissed, the invisible, irreparable breaches in friendships or between lovers, with such pitch-perfect precision, such lightness of touch. These are stories of fierce clarity and tenderness - I loved them. -- Lucy Caldwell, author of Intimacies I felt most of the female characters were too 'mum hatey' and had a colonial mentality. As someone who has lived in many locations and with friends of all colours and creed but has comfortably settled into her proud Pakistani/Australian/ British skin, I found this book hard to relate to. The women generally had issues with the figures they associated with their brown identity and glorified the figures that they associated with their 'Western' identity. It just would have been nice to read a story where both sides were treated with the same respect. In most of the stories to always associate their brown identities with constraint/duty/oppression is problematic, and doesnt paint a full picture and 1 dimensional.

Huma Qureshi is a writer I know I'll be reading for years and years and years' Natasha Lunn, author of Conversations on Love Not only that— i experienced the angst of teenage love all over again; falling in love during the summer, and getting heartbroken by fall; peacefully outgrowing my friendships and leaving them in my past; encountering a past flame, and attaining closure after all these years; falling out of love from a seemingly-perfect marriage; and even the utter joy of childbirth after waiting for so long to conceive. However, I do recognise that these stories may be written semi autobiographical hence are authentic to the author and her experiences and feelings, so these stories will be relatable to some people, I just didn't enjoy them. A breathtaking collection of stories about our most intimate relationships, and the secrets, misunderstandings and silences that haunt them. My struggle: I think I found the middle-classness of this quite grating - Tuscany! Writers! Mildred’s in Soho! - although I was propelled by her voice in all the stories, especially the first. What can I say? I’m bored of *some* forms of recognition. Sometimes the tone of grievance could be samey, especially given the bougie lives of the characters. Underneath it all is alienation, playing out subtly like it does in real life. I think she comes up against a voice limitation when narrating from a hapless boyfriend’s POV, but in another story she perfectly captures an unwittingly oppressive mother’s tone.

In a stunning juxtaposition, Huma Qureshi utilises articulate and evocative language to communicate all the issues and concerns her characters can’t. In a sharp, beautifully executed collection of short stories, we explore the clashes of cultures, generations, and class divides with themes of love, familial relationships, motherhood, friendship, fertility, and death. These stories are short and bittersweet, they tug at your heart strings. Lots of them centre on the divisions, the rifts, the distance that forms in familial and romantic relationships and friendship. How literally the things we do not say create divides so they're not necessarily always comfortable reads as they made my stomach clench in mild anxiety at the underlying tensions. Huma Qureshi writes like a psychotherapist, considering, analysing, explaining, seeking outconflicts, evasions, and discomforts . . . The form suits her: she succeeds in a short space in describing her settings and defining her characters . . . there are notes of optimism that sound from true love; and, as always, amor vincit omnia. -- Brian Martin * Spectator * One of the book's silliest tales, Superstitious, features a woman who loses her boyfriend unexpectedly and attributes it to passing by a purportedly cursed tree.

Considering how everyone extols the virtues of Huma Qureshi's superb writing, as I chose my first book by her, I anticipated an exciting journey. Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love, a collection of short stories by Huma Qureshi, was, to put it mildly, an unimpressive read. It was a mediocre book with a few standout stories and the majority of them leaving me baffled. It does seem that the author tried to hard but there were too many lose strings in several stories which made it a rather confusing one. A daughter asks her mother to shut up, only to shut her up for good; an exhausted wife walks away from the husband who doesn’t understand her; on holiday, lovers no longer make sense to each other away from home. Other stories in the collection are diligent, sometimes close to sentimental: a tale about a student friendship gone awry in adulthood and another about a couple coping with repeat miscarriages are sensitive, seem personal and yet are thinly written. Qureshi is feeling her way with this form, and it’s to her credit that so many of these stories succeed. It’s a form she clearly reveres, with the titular allusion to Raymond Carver, and there is a whiff of Alice Munro in Qureshi’s sadly estranged mothers and daughters. This collection has reminded me how much I love short stories . . . I devoured it cover to cover . . . the whole collection is seriously wise and moving; one I know I'm going to revisit. -- Anna Bonet * Well Read * What annoyed me a bit though is how it seems most of the stories had a [Pakistani] Muslim woman with white man trope.To expand, I’m thinking about this more…It’s v hard as an Asian woman to not want stories by an Asian woman writer to do all the work of representation. Even as a woman reading cis women of any colour, I struggle against that need. It’s desperately unfair and not a responsibility of the writer to write about anything other than what interests them, in a way that interests them. Qureshi writes with courage and in these extraordinary stories capture the shame and loneliness of non-belonging and the challenge of self-acceptance. In the second tale, Summer, a mother-daughter argument over cultural influences and differences in viewpoint takes on complexity and has a depressing conclusion. It had the potential to be promising, but it ended so frantically that I had difficulties comprehending it. An exhilarating and expansive new novel about fathers and sons, faith and friendship from Caleb Azumah Nelson, the no.1 bestselling, award-winning author of Open Water Set across the blossoming English countryside, the stifling Mediterranean, and the bustling cities of London and Lahore, Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love illuminates the parts of ourselves we rarely reveal.

Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love is a collection full of secrets and yearnings, the gaps and silences found so often in misunderstandings and miscommunications. These stories work to fill those gaps, creating found families and belonging, and showing the sides of ourselves others rarely see . . . Qureshi's writing conveys the emotions her characters cannot . . . Each story is tightly written and closely edited, ending at the perfect moment . . . Exploring different relationships - mother and daughter, friendships, young love, spouses - Qureshi pulls apart the emotions surrounding each one, making even the darker narratives relatable and evocative. - Mslexia Whether it be the tension between mother-daughter relationships, the secrets kept hidden between partners, the betrayals and misunderstandings between friends, and even the conflicts one faces within oneself on a day-to-day basis— this book so accurately, and painfully, portrays it all. Deliciously complex, and vivid in detail— this short story collection presents the unspoken dynamics of intimate relationships between different, oh-so-flawed people. He has shown her many places and many cities, holding them open and unfolded for her in the palm of his hand like a pop-up greeting card for her to stroll about in next to him, both of them side by side A luscious debut . . Qureshi is a dab hand at yanking the rug out from under the reader. Her immersive, poignant stories - written mostly in understated prose - often have a sting in the tale . . I fell for this lyrical, moving collection and the woozy intensity that infuses many of its stories. Qureshi creates gripping plotlines and vividly drawn characters and - most importantly - she is a writer with something to say. -- Gwendolyn Smith ― i

My Book Notes

It would have been the perfect summer; if not for my father’s death” – from the first lines, short story collection Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love, by Huma Qureshi, grabs attention with its simplicity and intimate honesty. With disarming frankness the author writes about real life, ordinary people, and their relationships with themselves and others. Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love is a collection full of secrets and yearnings, the gaps and silences found so often in misunderstandings and miscommunications. These stories work to fill those gaps, creating found families and belonging, and showing the sides of ourselves others rarely see . . . Qureshi's writing conveys the emotions her characters cannot . . . Each story is tightly written and closely edited, ending at the perfect moment . . . Exploring different relationships - mother and daughter, friendships, young love, spouses - Qureshi pulls apart the emotions surrounding each one, making even the darker narratives relatable and evocative. -- Terri-Jane Dow * Mslexia * A lush, powerful tale of family and sisterhood from award-winning author Chika Unigwe, perfect for fans of Bernardine Evaristo and Tayari Jones

The writing is easy to get into, almost lyrical, and I enjoy that. I also appreciate how each story examines the different ways love can turn sour in our relationships— be it platonic, romantic, friendship, etc. Even how grief, loss, and resentment can taint love is also well explored.

Still, these are well told stories with well realised characters. Qureshi’s plots unfurl purposefully, sometimes to reveal a sting in the tale. Her concerns are domestic – first love, friendship, estranged mothers, discontented wives, families that fall apart, marriages that limp on – with the understanding that these are the things that matter most of all. She knows, too, that behind every relationship is some hidden wound, and she compels her characters to confront theirs. Read this book as a part of our April Bookclub, I was really looking forward to it. It was a hit for some of our members, but not for me, sadly. The terrain can get repetitive; this dilemma is usually felt by women who’ve left behind immigrant communities for a white, middle-class London milieu; there are many writers and journalists. Pressure points recur, too: in several stressful holidays, tolerable relationships become intolerable. And occasionally, the responses to monstrous mothers tip into melodrama; although it won the Harper’s Bazaar 2020 short story prize, I didn’t quite buy the murderous intent in The Jam Maker. Premonition beautifully recalls the intensity of a first crush, before a bewildering first kiss leads to disaster