IN THE LANGUAGE OF MIRACLES

Name: IN THE LANGUAGE OF MIRACLES
Author: Rajia Hassib
ISBN: 978-0-525-42813-8

by Rajia Hassib ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 11, 2015

Steeped in Arabic culture and the Muslim faith, as well as sharply observant of immigrants’ intricate relationships to their...

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Hassib’s sensitive, finely wrought debut probes the fault lines revealed in an Egyptian-American family after their eldest son kills his ex-girlfriend and himself.

Because the Al-Menshawys are Muslim immigrants to a small New Jersey town, they not only endure jaundiced scrutiny about where they went wrong with Hosaam, but ugly Internet shaming and whispers conflating a troubled teen’s actions with international terrorism. Hassib’s treatment of thoughtless prejudice is quietly scathing, but her real interest is how family members react to it. Mother Nagla is paralyzed by grief and guilt; almost a year after the murder-suicide, she is still relying on her mother, Ehsan, to run the house while she broods in her dead son’s attic room. She's appalled when her husband, Samir, a local doctor, decides that a memorial service for the girl Hosaam killed, daughter of their next-door neighbors, provides the perfect opportunity to rejoin the community. The novel takes place over the five days leading up to the service, but the characters’ memories range from the family’s arrival in 1985 through the fissures created by Hosaam’s act. Daughter Fatima is becoming more pious, which strikes her brother Khaled as providing one more reason for people to ostracize them. He feels his brother’s crime is still controlling the whole family’s behavior and thrashes around for ways to break free. Without minimizing the older generation’s faults—Samir is overbearing, Nagla passive-aggressive, Ehsan interfering and manipulative—Hassib makes palpable the bonds of love and loyalty that bind them and the children together in a situation that would test any family to its limits. The climax at the memorial service is as wrenching, awkward, and inconclusive as it would be in real life; an epilogue affirms that people survive even the most horrific traumas.

Steeped in Arabic culture and the Muslim faith, as well as sharply observant of immigrants’ intricate relationships to their adopted homelands, this exciting novel announces the arrival of a psychologically and socially astute new writer.

Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-525-42813-8

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.