Towelhead

February 28, 2005
Erian (The Brutal Language of Love
) takes a dogged, unflinching look at what happens as a young woman's sexuality blooms when only a predatory neighbor is paying attention. After 13-year-old Jasira is sent to live with her father in Houston ("I didn't want to live with Daddy. He had a weird accent and came from Lebanon"), she finds herself coming of age in the shadow of his old world, authoritarian ideas, which include a ban on tampons (they're for married women, he insists) and a friendship with a boy who's black. Trapped between her father's rigidity and a wider culture that seems without rules, Jasira is left to handle puberty on her own, as well as her budding sexual desire and an ongoing longing for love and acceptance. Her creepy neighbor, Mr. Vuoso, senses her desires, and she responds eagerly to his sexual overtures. His willingness to eroticize her is heightened by how exotic—as well as distasteful—he finds her, a half–Middle Eastern child living in America on the eve of the first Gulf War. He hires Jasira to baby-sit for his son, and it's clear that their relationship will destroy them. The writing is not subtle—indeed, it can be quite clunky—but as a meditation on race, adolescence and alienation, the novel has moments of power. Agent, Peter Steinberg. Author tour; film rights to Alan Ball (
Six Feet Under).

December 1, 2004
Sent to the United States by her mother when Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, Jasira must cope with her strict father and the realization that she is an Arab. This full-length debut from a gifted story writer is an in-house favorite.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2005
Barry, the boyfriend of 13-year-old Jasira's mother, enjoys shaving Jasira's pubic hair. After Jasira's mom finds out, she ships Jasira off to live with her Lebanese father, whom Jasira has never liked. While Barry fetishized Jasira's body, her father seems disgusted by it--he yells at her, for instance, when she comes to breakfast before fully dressing and is clearly appalled when Jasira gets her first period. Their new next-door neighbor proves an even graver threat than Barry--soon, he sexually assaults Jasira, who feels like she can't go to her father since he already finds her body disgusting and regularly hits her for failing to follow his arcane rules. Jasira's narration is so relentlessly focused on her sexuality and the horrifying abuse she suffers that it becomes hard to read. The historical context--the novel is set before and during the first Gulf War--may be intended as parable, but Jasira's pain consumes the novel so fully that it overwhelms political symbolism. Instead, it is Jasira's straightforward, understated voice that gives power to this heartbreaking, utterly realistic story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)