August 2020. Sophia, a young playwright, awaits her father’s verdict on her new play. He is a famous author whose novels have not transitioned into the modern era as gracefully as he hopes, and he is completely unaware that the play is about a vacation the two spent years earlier on an island off Sicily, where he dictated a new book to her. The play received rave reviews, but Sophia’s father has carefully avoided reading any of them. But as the lights in the hall dim, he understands that his daughter has exposed him, using the events of her summer to craft an astute, witty, and caustic critique of the attitudes and sexual mores of the men of his generation.
What the reviewers say
Falls into the category of #MeToo novels, a label that presupposes a perspective that Hamya skillfully plays with… A brilliant litmus test of a novel, which does not mean that it is indecisive or wavering… Hamya successfully manages to create a mess with The Hypocriteand I mean that as high praise. Contemporary literature too often seeks the relief of an imaginary perfect morality, perhaps because so many readers today confuse the beliefs of the characters and their creator. It’s a pleasure to read a 27-year-old author using the power of the novel to obscure certainties about “bad people” – and goad readers into joining in.
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Impressive … Glides between time frames and points of view … Formal complexity is what elevates The Hypocrite from a straightforward novel of accusation and refutation… is instead focused on the phenomenon of subjectivity, portraying a world of mutual self-absorption in which people are not only driven but tragically blinded by their individual truths. The Hypocrite puts style above argument, and the pleasure lies in the quick, agile way in which Ms. Hamya switches between the characters’ thoughts and the past and present.
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Hamya’s prose is clear and fluid… The author’s main focus here is on the gaping gap between generations and the way in which life in the Internet age exacerbates these age-old differences.
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