Of some interest to readers of contemporary Arabic literature.
Egyptian novelist and jurist El-Ashmawi delivers an allegorical tale of religious strife in a desert backwater.
Tayea Village isn’t much of a place, as Nader Fayez Kamal discovers on arriving. The most interesting thing about the farming backwater is its name, which honors a former mayor but which the inhabitants mispronounce: “They called it Tayha, as in the lost soul, instead of the obedient one.” The “lost soul” sobriquet is fitting, for, explains a villager with the redolent name of Ramses Iskander, the house in which Nader, a public prosecutor, has been billeted is said to be haunted by the ghost of a British colonial officer, and in the wake of the resulting curse some of its previous Muslim inhabitants abandoned the town, which was then settled by Christians. One such lost soul wanders into Tayea about the same time Nader does, a woman named Hoda Yusef Habib, who, raped by her stepfather, has been married off to a brutish, abusive older man. Now a widow—or so she thinks—Hoda assumes a Coptic identity and hides in open sight, in the bargain revealing healing powers reminiscent of the biblical tale of Lazarus. Those powers don’t extend to keeping peace between Christians and Muslims, however, and El-Ashmawi’s story becomes one of grinding vendettas, lawsuits, and murders, with a leavening of sardonic magic realism in the vein more of Dürrenmatt than García Márquez. Much of the story can be read as a thinly veiled critique of the last years of the Mubarak regime, marked by sectarian violence and official corruption. The characters are too thinly developed to carry much weight. Nader, though committed to justice, is both weak and shallow: He carries a gun without bullets and lives in fear of a call from his distant but demanding fiancee, while Hoda, strong and resolute, pays a terrible price “simply because she wanted to live,” an outcome that can be predicted well before the book’s end.
Of some interest to readers of contemporary Arabic literature.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781649032546
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Hoopoe
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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