The Ruins of Us

November 14, 2011
Parssinen’s gripping, well-crafted debut tracks the awakening of a Saudi Arabian family to the dangers that lurk within. Twenty-five years into her marriage to wealthy Abdullah al-Baylani, the American Rosalie is shattered to find that her husband has taken another wife, and worries about the effect this will have on their teenage children, Faisal and Mariam. Rosalie and Abdullah’s love began in college in Texas, a bond deepened by the fact that Rosalie grew up in Saudi Arabia, “on the State Oil compound just outside of Al Dawoun and possessed that displaced expatriate child’s longing—more like an illness, really—for a home that no longer existed.” While Rosalie turns inward and Abdullah spends time with his Palestinian second wife, Faisal distances himself and, appalled by his father’s drinking and his mother’s American ways, delves deeply into a Koranic study group with a charismatic leader whose anti-American sermons light a dangerous fire inside the new pupil. Born in Saudi Arabia and having spent a decade there, Parssinen deftly illuminates Saudi Arabian life through a family locked in a battle over morality and cultural chasms. Agent: Fletcher & Company.

December 1, 2011
A Saudi patriarch's decision to take a second wife unsettles more than just his American-raised spouse. Rosalie, the heroine of Parssinen's debut novel, has spent more than two decades living in Saudi Arabia, and she's resigned herself to the country's sexist constraints: the headscarves she must wear, the cars she's not allowed to drive, the subservience she must project to her husband, Abdullah, at least in public. But when she discovers that Abdullah has had a second wife for two years, her combative Texas roots reemerge, and she begins voicing her anger and pondering an escape. Guiding her in that direction is Dan, an American-born former boyfriend of hers and an employee of Abdullah. But Rosalie can't easily get away when her two teenaged children require attention. Her daughter, Mariam, is increasingly Westernized, writing a blog that risks angering the authorities, while her son, Faisal, is enchanted by radical Islam and prone to increasingly vehement anti-American rhetoric. The pieces are a little too neatly arranged on the plot's chessboard, and the novel's climactic chapters, which involve a kidnapping, voice familiar messages about zealotry and cross-cultural understanding. But Parsinnen convincingly inhabits the shifting moods of her characters; writing in close third person, she follows Dan, Abdullah, Rosalie and the children (though, interestingly, Abdullah's second wife remains largely a blank). Parsinnen also exposes plenty about life in Saudi Arabia, from the subtle politicking among the ruling emirs to the punishing desert heat to the tactics of girl-chasing boys at the shopping malls. Throughout, her prose is artful without being showy, forced, or melodramatic, and her knowledge of Saudi culture informs the story, instead of making this a stock infidelity tale with some exotic touches. A fine debut that uses its knowledge of both Saudi Arabia and psychology to transcend some overly schematic character arrangements.

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