Author: Rabih Alameddine
# of Pages: 323 (hardback)
Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and “the neighborhood homosexual,” Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son’s desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja’s work life and love life, boundaries be damned. When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn’t be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget.
Review: I enjoyed this book a lot more than I expected.
What did I expect? Not much; I received this book as a gift. A story about a Lebanese man and his mother didn't seem particularly interesting to me. The protagonist, Raja, tells a hodge-podge first person narrative of his life, and for most of the story it wasn't clear on what this book was even supposed to be about.
However, Raja's narrative voice is amusing; he acts so flippant as literal war and horrible things happens to him and those around him. I found chapter 3 (the middle section) and the ending the most addicting to read. The family dysfunction and Raja's quirks suddenly became endearing, and by the end the reader is filled with a sense of understanding on how Raja and his mother each express their love for each other.
Although Raja's unorganized rambling slowed down the pacing of the story, I enjoyed the story enough for that to nearly be cancelled out (net neutral read). I wouldn't recommend it in a hurry, but if this already sounds like something you would be interested in, then you should give it a try.
