In her debut novel, Out of It, British Palestinian author Selma Dabbagh creates a family from Gaza which reflects all the stresses, conflicts, and competing philosophies endemic to that world, a small strip of land along the Mediterranean coast in the westernmost corner of Israel, bordering Egypt. Creating a well-differentiated Gaza family which lives their lives and join friends in numerous activities, both political and otherwise, the reader learns about life in Gaza and the various factions complicating any unified action by any Palestinian “government.” By showing the action through members of a single family with differing points of view, the author makes many issues come alive in new ways and shows how they affect family dynamics. And though the issues and the different political factions attempting to deal with them are sometimes a bit muddled for those of us who are not already familiar with all the various groups in Gaza, her focus is clearly on those issues. We come to know the characters within the limits of their points of view, and they and their fates become part of the message rather than ends in themselves. The novel is enlightening and often entertaining, descriptive and often memorable, and exciting but often horrific, with few hints that any real solution is forthcoming.
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In this autobiographical novel, author Vaddey Ratner has accomplished what every novelist hopes for—she has created a main character and family so vibrant that every reader will truly feel “replanted” and rooted in a different place – Cambodia – where they then share every aspect of these characters’ lives and hopes for the future. Telling the story is Raami, an engaging seven-year-old child of a large and loving Phnom Penh family, which also includes her nanny, cook, and beloved gardener. Together they inhabit a lush, lovely, and endlessly fascinating natural world which offers constant visual surprises and inspires the stories, tales, and poems Raami relates here. Many of these poems and stories have been written by her father, a man she adores, and they infuse her whole life with the magic and beauty of words, offering hope and inspiration even through the atrocities she eventually witnesses when the Khmer Rouge take over the country. Directed by revolutionary officers and moved from village to village at the whim of the Khmer, the family performs menial labor as they try to hide their background, dealing with starvation, disease, exhaustion, killings. It is her memory of her father’s stories which keep her sane. Beautifully written, totally involving, and eventually uplifting.
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Fans of the previous five novels in the Quirke series by “Benjamin Black,” the pen name of Booker Prize-winning author John Banville, will celebrate the publication of this sixth novel of the Dublin-based series, set in the 1950s. Continuing all the main characters from previous novels, Black spends little time rehashing the sometimes sordid history of their relationships. Instead, he picks up where he left off with A Death in Summer, with few references to the characters’ backgrounds from previous novels. Quirke become involved with an investigation at the beginning of this novel when Victor Delahaye, the main partner in Delahaye and Clancy, an old company with a flourishing automobile repair business, invites the young son of his partner Jack Clancy to accompany him on a sail. Young Davy Clancy hates sailing, and has no idea why Jack, whom he does not know well, makes such an issue of having him as the only passenger. This trip does not make Davy like sailing any better. When he and Delahaye are far from land, Delahaye pulls out a gun and kills himself. Another death occurs shortly afterward. Those who have read the previous novels may be less enchanted with this one than those who are coming to it “fresh.”
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