I HOPE YOU FIND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR

An Eritrean woman, her teenage daughter, and their cousin find refuge and opportunity in the Washington, D.C. area in 1991.

Elsa, a former guerrilla fighter, and her 13-year-old daughter, Lydia, have lived in Alexandria, Virginia since escaping their country’s war against Ethiopia. Having arrived as a baby, Lydia is strung between two worlds: There are the traditional Eritrean customs championed by Zewdi, Elsa’s older cousin and their apartment-building neighbor, and the social pressures of being an American teen. As stoic Elsa works long days at her hot dog cart on the National Mall, Mama Zewdi—single and middle-aged, having spent her marriageable years as a chaperone to a Saudi princess—keeps a sharp eye on Lydia. Now, added to the mix and taking over Lydia’s bedroom is 19-year-old cousin Berekhet, a budding philosopher who has supposedly arrived in the U.S. to attend college—though he has other plans. As Eritrea’s 30-year war comes to a close, the country’s independence is inspiring a little rebellion on the home front. Lydia, who doesn’t know any details about her martyred father or his family, begins her own investigation with Berekhet’s advice, while the celebrations also trigger Elsa’s anguish about her closest friend and the death of Lydia’s father. In many ways, however, this novel is Zewdi’s story, as she challenges her own sense of tradition: She has been introduced to an Eritrean gentleman—he’s a bore, but this may be her last chance at marriage. While the novel explores the harrowing aftereffects of war, there is an abundance of charm in the characterizations, warm humor, and a joyful depiction of a tight-knit community bound by displacement but also by fellowship, where every stranger may be a long-lost cousin.

The large and subtle costs of war shape this big-hearted portrait of the Eritrean immigrant experience.