Sara and Naeem are drawn to one another romantically and desperately negotiate personal desire with devotion to their faith. With great tenderness, Gamieldien allows us to slip into the intimate lives of her protagonists. Each character has a distinct cultural context, economic status and relationship with Allah, and their ambitions and views converge and conflict. Zeynab Gamieldien’s debut novel, The Scope of Permissibility, delicately weaves the perspectives of three university students who are members of the Muslim Students Association (MSA). The Scope of Permissibility Zeynab Gamieldien (Ultimo Press, available now) She’ll never get to be the person she was meant to be because of him.’ And yet, these are artistic choices that are in line with the book’s tone and structure, which skews away from the bleakness of misery-lit by signalling from the very start, as Jagger says in her preface, that this is a story about ‘breaking the cycle, not being broken by it’. This compelling story of a young woman dragging herself from the depths of despair and overcoming the trauma of her childhood celebrates a hard-won understanding of the human capacity for endurance and the regenerative power of literature. As a result, the dialogue can sometimes feel contrived: ‘He’s ruined her. The rest of Roseghetto is the harrowing journey that got Shayla to this juncture.īy embracing melodrama and condensing key characters into clear heroes and villains, Roseghetto suffuses the story with heightened emotional intensity. As she stands among the bulldozed remains of the house that was the centrepiece of so much childhood trauma, we learn she is one week into a cadetship with the ABC. The prologue, which is set in the present day, indicates this is the path that will set her free.

In a world of pain, Shayla’s only escape is in the books she reads and the stories she hopes to tell one day. Not long after, Rob will call her ‘a leftover from a life never wanted a constant rotten reminder of a time she wishes she could forget.’ Jagger subtly evolves Shayla’s syntax as she grows older, and her impressions and observations of her circumstances become more acute. ‘Being less bad doesn’t make him any good!’ Shalya bemoans. Her mother’s new partner, Rob, is barely an improvement.

Shayla’s father was a man of boundless depravity. Shalya’s mother is well intentioned (thus earning Shalya’s eternal loyalty), but lacks financial independence and attaches herself to abusive men. She was born into hardship and her life is shaped by factors completely beyond her control. It is up to storytellers like Kirsty Jagger to elucidate such desperate and pitiable existences. It’s also evidently inspired somewhat by Jagger’s own life in 2019, she won the inaugural Heyman Mentorship Award for a writer from a background of social or economic disadvantage. It is a wrenching account of poverty, confusion, survival and, ultimately, success. Roseghetto is a coming-of-age story that chronicles a young woman’s efforts to study her way out of a tough childhood in Rosemeadow, Western Sydney.

Kill your darlings