Farah Naz Rishi's "The Flightless Birds of New Hope," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Flightless Birds of New Hope: A Novel by Farah Naz Rishi.

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The Flightless Birds of New Hope follows three estranged siblings who reunite after their parents’ deaths and set out on a cross-country road trip to recover the family’s missing cockatoo. As they chase the bird who once commanded all their parents’ devotion, the trip becomes an unsteady reckoning with old resentments, unfinished grief, and the possibility—however tentative—of finding their way back to one another.

The siblings are shaped as much by what they’ve avoided as by what they’ve endured. Aden, the eldest, is a cynical lawyer who ran away from home and rarely looks back. Aliza, the middle child, stayed, her loyalty slowly turning into a kind of inertia. And Sammy, the youngest, remains gentle and observant, still willing to love everyone at once, even when it hurts.

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When I write, I rarely have actors in mind. Part of that may be because I’m a Pakistani-American writing about Pakistani-American families, and the list of obvious references is short. Still, once the book was finished, I let myself imagine what an adaptation might look like.

For Aden, Haroon Khan feels like a natural fit. He has an ease with humor that doesn’t undercut emotional depth, and that balance matters for a character who often uses wit to keep people at a distance. Aden needs to be difficult without becoming unreadable, and I think...[read on]

Visit Farah Naz Rishi's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Flightless Birds of New Hope.

--Marshal Zeringue