Behind You Is the Sea, Susan Muaddi Darraj's third work of fiction, is a shimmering composite portrait of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore. Across nine stellar linked stories, she explores the complex relationships between characters divided by--or connected despite--class, language, and traditional values.
Each of the stories--four in first-person narrative, five in third-person--spotlights a particular character. For pregnant high-schooler Reema Baladi, her father's death inspires her to keep the baby as a replacement vessel for her love, in "A Child of Air." Reema's younger sister, Maysoon, cleans wealthy Demetri Ammar's house in the title piece, set 17 years later. Though both families are Palestinian American, they're in different leagues. Reema works two jobs; Maysoon drives an ancient Buick the Ammars are ashamed to have in their driveway. But money isn't everything: Reema's son Gabriel aces AP Calculus, while the Ammar boy fails.
A third major family is the Salamehs, cousins to the Ammars. Introduced in "Ride Along," police officer Marcus Salameh had never visited Palestine before accompanying his father's corpse in "Escorting the Body." His emotions are complicated: Baba wouldn't speak to Marcus's sister, Amal--first for having an abortion, then for marrying a Black man. And yet Baba showed extraordinary compassion to Rita, who was imprisoned and tortured during the First Intifada.
Interracial marriage again fuels conflict in "Mr. Ammar Gets Drunk at the Wedding," which highlights the racist microaggressions Darraj's characters sometimes experience. "The Hashtag," the standout in a very strong collection, reprises the theme of the repression of women's sexuality. Soon after Rania Mahfouz's husband returns from his cousin Rasha's funeral in Palestine, Twitter blows up with allegations that Rasha was the victim of a familial honor killing.
Meanwhile, Rania petitions for quality education for her learning-disabled son, aided by Arabic-speaking lawyer Samirah Awadah. Samirah, a domestic violence survivor navigating her father's dementia, stars in "Worry Beads." In the touching "Cleaning Lentils," Ammar daughter Hiba's grandparents--culturally, a world apart--offer the tender care she needs to recover from disordered eating. And in "Gyroscopes," Hiba's science-loving friend, Layla Marwan, futilely objects to stereotyped representations of Arabs in a production of Aladdin.
Darraj (A Curious Land) depicts the variety of immigrant and second-generation experience (especially women's), probing cultural and generational differences in a sensitive, life-affirming way. "The Arabs were a people that knew life could be horrifically unjust... and yet they cherished it." --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck
Shelf Talker: This compassionate novel-in-stories, set in a Palestinian American community, prioritizes the experiences of young women and explores class and cultural divides that surround three families.