I don’t know much about the country of Libya, and I had to look up the specifics of who the dictator Qaddafi was/is (“While he holds no formal office, it is generally understood that Gaddafi holds near-absolute control over the government. Basic civil liberties are virtually nonexistent, and opposition is not tolerated.”) But after reading this careful, precise yet insightful book, I felt like I knew what it was like to be a child in 1979 Libya. His father often absent and active in the hidden resistance movement, nine-year-old Suleiman spends the summer sealed in the family’s house with his mother, waiting for news, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And being an only child, the apple of his mother’s eye, Suleiman is in truth captured in the world of women, the world of those who cannot act but only watch, the world of the powerless and the scared.

In some ways, I’m truly amazed that a man wrote this story, so compelling is the way he speaks of his mother’s early life, the obsequious way she’s forced to deal with men, her fear, her impotence and especially the limits placed upon her. Chaperones, clothing, words. She turns to alcohol — which was (is?) illegal in the Muslim state — that she buys in secret from the local baker. How else is one supposed to cope with the stress of being under the sword, as Suleiman thinks of their situation, alluding to One Thousand and One Nights/Arabian Nights?

What would come out? Could he make music, could he sing? Scheherazade did, night after night, unable to look up into a sky or rest in the silence and solitude of her garden, hearing a wicker chair creak with the comfort of her own weight. She, I am certain now, was one of the bravest people that had ever lived. It’s one thing not to fear death, another to sing under the sword.

This novel is packed with meaning and careful prose, which makes it a slow read. But it also feels like you’re imprisoned in a small space just like Suleiman and his mother. The way the boy reacts to the stress is dead-spot-on kids’ behavior. He lashes out at his real friends, he becomes disobedient, he turns violent and tearful by turns, he feels crushing guilt.

Concern. I think that was what I craved. A warm and steady and unchangeable concern. In a time of cloud and tears, in a Libya full of bruise-checkered and urine-stained men, urgent with want and longing for relief, I was the ridiculous child craving concern. And although I didn’t think of it then in these terms, my self-pity had soured into self-loathing.

In the end, I think this novel reads more like autobiography than fiction. It seems like a novel should have a little more forward momentum. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the characters, the style and the plot are incredibly well done, by a very talented writer. I’ll definitely have to see if he’s written any novels since.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars – Book club selection