“Zone of Exception”: The Question of Constituency in H. M. Naqvi’s Home Boy

Abstract

H. M. Naqvi’s recent novel Home Boy (2009) is the story of three young “Metrostanis” who, although hardly model citizens, are well-integrated into New York City life. After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the ensuing state of emergency, all three men find themselves arrested and incarcerated. Although innocent and in the United States legally, they find themselves experiencing the shock effect after terror, what Moira Fradinger calls a “zone of exception,” wherein the border between legal and illegal becomes blurred. Constituency is a way of defining membership, and in times of crisis membership becomes more selective, often defining an enemy within – in this case, young Muslim males – as beyond the pale. Such a zone of exception functions as a political tool to consolidate borders, or constituencies, in terms of cultural identity, and has serious consequences for those who, in the aftershock, are divested of membership.