The Frightened Ones

June 15, 2020
Syrian writer Wannous’s English-language debut is a bleak, multilayered tale of depression and fear framed by violence, discrimination, displacement, and revolution in Damascus after the 2011 uprising. It follows Suleima, a young woman struggling with anxiety, as she meets Naseem, a troubled writer who publishes under a pseudonym, in her therapist’s waiting room. The two develop an intense relationship that abruptly ends when Naseem flees to Germany to escape Assad’s dictatorship. He sends Suleima an unfinished manuscript featuring an unnamed main character that Suleima recognizes as a version of herself (“It’s true that her family is different, as are her memories, but our souls clearly spin in the same orbit”). From there, Wannous alternates between Naseem’s writing and Suleima’s narration, in which she looks back on her life in Damascus from her own refuge in Beirut. The author describes the politics of the revolution and neatly parallels the present-day atrocities and Suleima’s parents’ memories of a 1982 massacre, but at the work’s core is Wannous’s exploration of Suleima’s struggles with her mental health, as she relies on Xanax whenever her heartbeat reaches its “dreaded gallop.” Though powerful in its portrayal of Suleima’s layered ordeal, the dueling narratives are somewhat disjointed. Still, this deeply humane examination of wartime Syrians and their coping mechanisms deserves a look.