The Laughter

"Sonora Jha’s fast-paced campus drama turns the tables upside down in this well-traveled genre. Jha deploys a clueless narrator, Dr. Oliver Harding, who becomes smitten with Ruhaba Khan, a Pakistani law professor. Jha gets inside the hubristic Dr. Harding’s head to show his obliviousness to his white privilege, his antiquated views on race, his impact on others and, ultimately, his fragile position on campus. The “laughter” is in Professor Khan’s sense of humor, but more so in the author’s own dark humor."