The Automobile Club of Egypt

July 6, 2015
The latest from bestselling Egyptian novelist Al Aswany memorably evokes corrupt British-occupied Egypt in the years before the 1952 revolution. When well-respected landowner Abd el-Aziz Gaafar is forced into bankruptcy, he moves his wife and family from Daraw to Cairo and finds work at the Automobile Club of Egypt. A microcosm of Egypt itself, the Eurocentric, elitist club employs Egyptians as menials and treats them like slaves. Beaten for his lack of submissiveness, Abd el-Aziz dies suddenly, leaving his family in peril. Dutiful daughter Saleha forsakes her beloved studies for a marriage that benefits her selfish brother, Said. Her other brothers, Mahmud and Kamel, take jobs at the Automobile Club; Mahmud uses his position to meet wealthy women who pay him lavishly for sex, while Kamel juggles his job with dangerous work in the underground nationalist movement, which is beginning to gain a foothold in the country. The desire for dignity and human rights arises in the club as well. But workers who demand more humane treatment face opposition from powerful Alku, the hedonistic king's right-hand man, and fellow employees who have grown craven from years of abuse. Myriad colorful details, intertwining narratives, and dramatic cliffhangers form an earthy, entertaining contrast to the novel's sober preoccupationsânamely, the human spirit's capacity to both transcend and be crushed by oppressive systems.

Starred review from June 15, 2015
In post-World War II Cairo, one family offers a lens on royal corruption, the British occupation, and the economic struggles of urban Egyptians in this rich political fable. As in his debut, The Yacoubian Building, the bestselling Egyptian novelist and commentator (Friendly Fire, 2009, etc.) intertwines many lives caught up in history, in this case the eve of his country's 1952 revolution. The once-wealthy patriarch of the Gaafar family suddenly dies after being beaten while working a menial job at the exclusive Cairo club of the title, where Egyptians are servants and only Europeans and royalty are members. Two of his three sons then get jobs at the club to support their mother and sister but also pursue secret activities. The studious Kamel, who gives Arabic lessons to the rebellious daughter of the club's British managing director, is drawn into a group of radicals seeking to end the occupation. The oafish Mahmud performs as a gigolo servicing wealthy elderly women. Their sister reluctantly abandons her university studies to marry a man who will help the third brother in his business pursuits. Two characters embody the corruption and abuses targeted by the 1952 uprising that overthrew the king and helped oust the British. James Wright, the club director, is almost a caricature of obtuse colonial snobbery. He connives with the king's chamberlain, Alku, who rules over the servants of the club through humiliation and beatings. The king himself is an overweight, gambling womanizer whose hankerings put Wright in an ugly quandary close to home. Coming out so soon after the 2011 revolution, the novel at its simplest level may serve to remind Egyptians and others involved in the Arab Spring of some of the historical reasons so many pursued democracy and how elusive it remains. Whatever political freight Al Aswany intends, he remains a charming, earthy, resourceful storyteller-albeit with a weakness for cliffhangers-who might seduce even readers closer to Times Square than to Tahrir Square.

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July 1, 2015

The Automobile Club of Egypt is no AAA; it's a luxury eating, drinking, and gambling club for foreigners and Egyptian nobles, flourishing in the post-World War II era, where the Egyptian staff is treated as subhuman. The story centers on the family of Abd al-Aziz, once a wealthy landowner brought low by his own generosity. When he dies early on, three of his children bear the story line: daughter Saleha gets in and out of a very bad marriage; simple-minded son Mahmoud enters and later exits a life as a male prostitute; and lead character Kamel, a law student, who, like Mahmoud, is sent to work at the club after his father's death, is smitten with the club's arrogant Brit manager's daughter (she feels the same) and joins a seditious group intent on ousting Egypt's corrupt king. Kamel becomes an oft-beaten political prisoner, still held captive at book's end--but now married. Meanwhile, a strike at the club results in punishment for the staff. The book starts in medias res and ends there, too. It's also a roller-coaster ride, each chapter building to a critical point, then plunging into one of the other plots, like a Dickens novel. VERDICT From the author of The Yacoubian Building, Aswany's new novel is for those who love realism and excellent character-based fiction, with a dash of Marxism. [See Prepub Alert, 3/2/15.]--Robert E. Brown, Oswego, NY

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2015
This raucous, technicolor novel by Al Aswany (Friendly Fire, 2009), one of Egypt's most political and popular novelists, appears to be about the lives of the country's ordinary citizens, but at its blazing heart is the seething discontent that led to the 1952 Revolution that threw out the British occupiers and kick-started the Nasser era. Facing penury, landowner Abd el-Aziz Gaafar relocates his family to Cairo and finds a job at the Automobile Club of Egypt. Unfortunately, work at the club, a popular hangout for the British occupiers, is as oppressive as the desert heat. When the patriarch is brutally and fatally beaten, his sons, brawny Mahmud and intelligent Kamel, take his place to save the family from bankruptcy. The crisp chapters, often ending in cliff-hangers, are mostly narrated by the Gaafars, including Saleha, the dutiful daughter. Even if the compulsively readable story, painted on a vast canvas, comes at the expense of character development, Al Aswany's novel stands as a searing examination of worker subjugation and other injustices.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)