'All My Rage': A Story of Love, Loss and Forgiveness in the Mojave Desert

In her new young adult novel, “All My Rage,” author Sabaa Tahir tells a story of cultural identity and growing up through the eyes of two teenage best friends. Noor and Salahudin are both Pakistani American, living in the small fictional town of Juniper, in California’s Mojave Desert. Noor wants nothing more than to go away to college and leave behind their rural town.

Tahir is the bestselling author of the young adult fantasy series “An Ember in the Ashes,” which features a young woman of color as the hero fighting back against an oppressive empire. In contrast to her fantasy novels, Tahir mines her own experiences in her most recent book. Like her main character, Salahudin, she is the child of Pakistani immigrants who grew up in a rural town in the Mojave Desert, in her parents’ 18-room motel.

Tahir recently spoke with The California Report Magazine’s Sasha Khokha.

(Excerpts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.)

On being shaped by the experience of growing up in her family’s motel

I think the thing that I remember the most are all the different types of people who would come through. Everything I learned, from how to curse, to the different ways that people expressed kindness. We had a tenant once who paid us with a bird because I think he didn’t have enough money to make rent. But he had all these birds that he loved, that he kept in the room. We had a tenant once who [damaged] the room, [making] a hole in the wall or something, and he left without saying anything about it. But my parents found money in the room, and they assumed that that was his way of saying, “Hey, sorry about this. I hope this will pay for it.”

But we also had people who wouldn’t pay rent, who ruined the rooms, who called us names, who were abusive. It really was an experience of extremes. I was quiet, I loved reading. I was in my head a lot. And I think that there was so much more going on inside than I ever really expressed. So I would lose myself in books and reading and writing stories.

On writing for young adults

I feel like 14 to 22 is an age of such change and such growth. So much of story is about the arc, about the change and the growth within a character. So to me, it seems like a natural fit to write about young adults. I love writing for children who are at a vulnerable time in their life and to write stories that are, in my mind, realistic but that also offer hope. Because as a young person myself, I really, really needed to see hope in the books that I read.

I think honesty is really important, showing the messy reality of these kids’ lives, both in the struggle but also in the beauty and in the humor — in allowing for a lack of resolution, or a resolution that is perhaps a little bit more ambiguous. Because the truth is that trauma doesn’t always leave us. We can heal from it. Sometimes we can shed it, but not always. I wanted to portray that realistically for young people because I don’t think young people are always taught how to deal with trauma. And yet young people go through immense amounts of trauma, whether adults want to admit it or not.

On using music to express Noor’s emotions

One of the songs that means so much to Noor is “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” by [The] Smashing Pumpkins. And I think people who know the song will recognize the title of this book. It’s this ’90s anthem and it really encompasses this sense of rage that Noor feels that is buried very deep. Another song that Noor loves is by Masuma Anwar called “Tainu Ghul Gayaan.” Anwar has this really deep voice and this incredible range.

Noor really struggles to express her feelings. When she speaks out loud, she ends up using short sentences, really having a hard time saying what she means. So one of the reasons why she loves Masuma Anwar so much is because this woman puts so much feeling into a single word.

Anna Leone’s song “Once” comes up on Noor’s playlist as Noor and Salahudin are driving together, and they’ve just shared some deep secrets with each other. This is a song that is all about regret and the past:

I close my eyes and lean my head back. The road is smooth beneath the wheels. The window cool against the bruise on my cheek, and Anna Leone sings “Once” about what it means to move on from the past.

“Sometimes, Salahudin,” I say, “it feels like too much. I think about the shit we’ve read in school. Those books all about one problem. A kid who’s bullied. A kid who’s beaten. A kid who’s poor. And I think of us and how we won the shit-luck lottery. We have all the problems.”

“Nazar seh bachau.” He utters Auntie Misbah’s oath against the evil eye so fervently that I laugh.

Famine comes when you lament the flood. I hear Auntie Misbah say in my head. It could always be worse.

“Do you think our adulthoods will make up for everything we had to deal with as kids?” I ask him.

“Like, we get out of here and you go to med school and I become a writer and our lives will be amazing?”

“They don’t have to be amazing. Just not…” My face throbs, “Not this.”

“You’re going to escape this place, Noor.” He looks over at me. “You’re going to become a doctor. Your adulthood is going to make up for all of it.”

On what is bringing her joy right now

I think there’s so much wonderful art being created. There are so many wonderful books out in the world right now. There’s so much fantastic music that’s being created.

I also take great joy from the young people in my own life. I’ve been so amazed by my kids and my nieces and nephews. Their positivity despite everything they’ve gone through in the past two years. How laughter is something that is just a part of their daily, hourly, a part of their life. There are times when I’m stressing over something, and in the background, I will hear my kids just busting up over something ridiculous. And it’s just this wonderful reminder to get out of my head and to put away some of these worries and to just let myself laugh.

That’s also a part of “All My Rage,” that there is so much hope there. There is humor. There is light in this story of some really difficult things, because that is often how we get through the most difficult parts of our life, with humor and friendship and hope.

Sabaa Tahir’s novel “All My Rage” comes out on March 1.