Learned Behaviours

Part murder mystery, part love story, and part coming-of-age tale, Learned Behaviours is also very much a commentary on race and class in contemporary Australia – and a bloody good one. Zeynab Gamieldien’s first novel, The Scope of Permissibility, was an engaging look at university life for a group of kids from the Muslim diaspora: a competent and thoughtful effort that often read like young adult fiction but still had plenty to say. This second novel is next level: in the complexity of its ideas, in the subtlety with which they’re handled, in its many plot threads, and simply in the quality of its prose. It’s a cracker.

Thirty-something Zaid Saban is reading to be a barrister with a prominent Sydney firm after a stellar career as a corporate lawyer. He’s escaped the Western suburbs – The Area – and is looking forward to a glowing future. But from the first pages it becomes obvious that Zaid’s past success is not going to guarantee his unimpeded progress forward – especially when someone from his childhood re-enters his life.

Much of Learned Behaviours is distinctly and deliberately culturally specific. Gamieldien is very good at evoking the Western suburbs milieu. But she’s equally good at inviting us in. Regardless of the cultural context, plenty of us can relate to feeling like an outsider, at not being able to keep up with the cool kids, at becoming – gradually or suddenly – aware of the hidden class structures that rule Australian society.

Gamieldien is also incredibly generous in her analysis of the issues, and the way they manifest in individuals. There are no villains here (well, maybe one). Just a bunch of people figuring out how to play the hand they’ve been dealt. The result is a yarn that’s both a page-turner and a warm-hearted analysis of human nature, as humane as it is sophisticated.