Rafiq Hardi Kermanj is a staunch idealist, the sort who elicits eye rolls from his teenage children in Agri Ismaïl's engrossing debut novel, Hyper (Coffee House Press; 329 pages). Children rebelling against their parents is a familiar tale, especially in the digital age, when the entire world opens up with the click of a mouse. But Hyper is both interesting and refreshing thanks to its unique, compelling characters, strong prose, and a particularly eccentric father. From its opening pages, it explores sweeping themes of exile, generational conflict, and the search for identify amid chaos.

As an adult, middle child Siver marries an Arab and assumes a role similar to that of a traditional Arab housewife, much to the consternation of her Kurdish parents. We learn immediately that her marriage failed: she's fled her husband, Karim, and is working to settle in Dubai with her daughter, Zara. Siver is stuck trying to scrape together enough money to live against the backdrop of the world's most ostentatious example of Capitalism. She defied her parents' wishes by marrying Karim and moving to Baghdad when he took over his father's lucrative construction business. The structure of her story, with short passages in the present alternating with scenes from her past, underscores how expectations don't match reality and highlights the novel's theme of cultural dislocation. The nonlinear scenes of the past juxtapose the way Rafiq and Karim both treat their wives, and the story reads like an autopsy of how failing to follow Rafiq's direction left Siver scrambling in a world that's difficult to survive.  

Eldest son Mohammed's story is structured as a linear timeline, divided into twenty short chapters. Mohammed was a subpar student who was able to "bullshit" his way into a job at a mid-market trading firm for which he wasn't qualified. The job itself is detestable to his parents: '"Prostitutes deal with money,' Xezal would say. Having money, according to his mother, indicated good standing, but actually earning it was a tawdry act that one should never draw attention to." Even after reaching a level that should have given him the financial security his own father couldn't provide, Mohammed isn't fulfilled. He lives in a downtrodden neighborhood and is often charging expenses to his personal credit card. His future is also in doubt when the CEO who hired him dies. The linear narrative lets us cheer for him and hold out hope, even though we suspect he's not cut out for the financial institutions that chew up and spit people out with no regard for their dignity. It's an engaging experience to see if Mohammed's father was right about the Capitalist institutions that risk ruining his son's dreams for a better future.

Rafiq's youngest son, Laika (named for his father's admiration of the Russian space dog), represents the least conventional path toward success in adulthood, but he found a level of financial security that eluded his siblings. He's portrayed in his teenage years as a loner and a computer geek, which his father approved of, perhaps not understanding its end result: "When Mohammed went into finance, Xezal and Rafiq would moan through the night over their eldest son's bad life choices. Yet they always supported Laika for his interest in 'computers,' not understanding that he, too, was learning about money, that money was all there was." Seeing how his two older siblings' choices drew his parents' ire likely led Laika to seek quick financial gain outside their understanding rather than join the rat race like his brother. His story is a straightforward narrative, told in one block with little dialogue and heavy on memory. It unfolds over a couple of days, alone in an apartment, as he tries to develop an algorithm to mirror the trades Goldman Sachs makes on the NYSE. Placing it after his siblings' stories is effective because he seems able to understand exactly what his father wanted to pass on, even if he chose to use his intelligence to profit from the most unsavory aspects of Capitalism. The way Laika lives cut off from people in the real world also infuses his story with a sense of loneliness as he reflects on his father's ideals in the context of his own worldview.

While Laika is the most thought-provoking of the three children, the content and structure of his section present risks. Prior to his story, the narrative moves at a breezy pace, but it slows considerably because of Laika's internalization and the lack of dialogue. A slower pace doesn't automatically hinder the reading experience. There's still considerable world-building, and his actions and memories add layers to a character we've only encountered in his siblings' storylines. To some, the change can feel a bit jarring, but a strong argument can be made that the overall quality of writing and humor can carry the narrative at a slower pace. A larger risk lies with the brutally realistic way Laika's social world is presented. While generally eschewing social interactions with people in the physical world, he spends considerable time and money conversing with online cam girls, and his messages with them, as well as his detailed requests for custom pornographic content, are quite explicit. While shocking, these depictions do serve a clear purpose: by immersing us in Laika's reality, the novel confronts the risks of alienation and isolation in the digital age. The explicit realism aligns with Laika's character but also deepens our understanding of his emotional state and search for intimacy, especially when compared with memories of past romantic relationships. There will always be readers who are put off by the explicit content, including those who wish such a world did not exist or simply didn't know it existed in the first place. But the sexual content is authentic to Laika's character, particularly in its examination of his loneliness. It's worth taking the risk and allowing Ismaïl to expose every part of his world, unsavory or not.

While the novel focuses on the three children, Rafiq is the book's guiding light and arguably its most interesting character, and one likely to leave a lasting impression on readers. Save for some short interludes, including one in which he hatches a poorly executed revenge plan against the nation that expelled him, he exists in his children's memories. He remains a staunch idealist, though at no point does he come off as preachy. Despite his relative inability to provide a stable financial environment for his family in London, his children look back on him fondly. As adults, they have a different perspective on Rafiq dragging them to protests and espousing his anti-Capitalist views while the family struggled for money. We also realize late in the book how beloved he was by the people he wanted to inspire, and each child shares a fond memory of Rafiq's funeral. Even if his children initially dismissed his personal ideals, he's a character worthy of their adoration.

Though Ismaïl builds vibrant, engaging characters, the novel's ultimate strength lies in its prose. It's packed with beautiful language but not at the expense of the plot. It has humor and irony, with satire of the same financial systems that Rafiq railed against vibrating beneath the narrative. But the satire is not overt or heavy-handed because it's tempered with wit and compassion. The absurdity built into their lives is equally delightful to read, the best example being the skewering of a culture that makes Mohammed obsessed with checking his email, and the ludicrous yet realistic demonstrations of corporate greed in which employees are constantly evaluated, and perks are slowly stripped away. (Another sad but true example from Mohammed's story is how his firm's employees are contractually guaranteed forty-five minutes for lunch but, "Whenever someone took too many half-hour lunches, an automated email would inform them that their total hours logged in that week had dropped below the company average.")

In the hands of a less skilled writer, Hyper might feel tired or over-the-top, as Rafiq constantly preaches Marxist ideology while his children struggle with the unforgiving reality of Capitalism. Thankfully, Ismaïl instead offers a novel filled not just with humor but also with context and compassion, and we get a delightful book about children who would have been better off listening to their father's lessons. Their lives are a microcosm of a larger struggle that will resonate with myriad readers feeling left behind by rising financial inequality, but the writing is strong enough to be enjoyed by those who perhaps don't share that worldview. Thanks to Ismaïl's strong prose, Hyper is the rare novel that makes us feel as if we've been reading for a half-hour when it's only been ten minutes, savoring each paragraph along the way. It's an outstanding debut worthy of considerable attention.