Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2024
256 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
An exciting debut novel that gives voice to the diverse residents of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore—from young activists in conflict with their traditional parents to the poor who clean for the rich—lives which intersect across divides of class, generation, and religion.
Funny and touching, Behind You Is the Sea brings us into the homes and lives of three main families—the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars—Palestinian immigrants who've all found a different welcome in America.
Their various fates and struggles cause their community dynamic to sizzle and sometimes explode: The wealthy Ammar family employs young Maysoon Baladi, whose own family struggles financially, to clean up after their spoiled teenagers. Meanwhile, Marcus Salameh confronts his father in an effort to protect his younger sister for "dishonoring" their name. Only a trip to Palestine, where Marcus experiences an unexpected and dramatic transformation, can bridge this seemingly unbridgeable divide between the two generations.
Behind You Is the Sea faces stereotypes about Palestinian culture head-on and, shifting perspectives to weave a complex social fabric replete with weddings, funerals, broken hearts, and devastating secrets.
"Their homeland casts a heavy shadow in this poignant novel about Baltimore's Palestinian immigrant community. Taken from a famous saying by legendary commander Tariq ibn Zayid, the title of Darraj's novel aptly describes the situation facing her ensemble cast, which finds itself trapped between Old World expectations and the challenges of life in America.... [Stories are] masterfully choreographed in a book in which each chapter reads like a small masterpiece.... A moving portrait of Palestinian families caught between the pressures of the Old World and the New." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"In this episodic debut novel, Darraj portrays the joys, resentments, and yearnings of three generations of a tight-knit Palestinian American community.... Marvelous and moving." —Booklist (starred review)
"This is a beautiful portrait of a family reaching for their dreams while holding onto their roots." —Publishers Weekly
"[Behind You Is the Sea] is a shimmering composite portrait of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore. Across nine stellar linked stories, [Darraj] explores the complex relationships between characters divided by—or connected despite—class, language, and traditional values.... Darraj depicts the variety of immigrant and second-generation experience (especially women's), probing cultural and generational differences in a sensitive, life-affirming way. 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." —Shelf Awareness
"In Behind You Is The Sea, multiple generations of a family confront stubborn, complicated truths while shouldering the burdensome weight of history. Susan Muaddi Darraj has fashioned a moving tale in which love, beauty, and life persist despite many injustices — indeed, despite everything." —Jabari Asim, author of Yonder
"Literature is slowly beginning to draw attention to the ways in which the socio-political America we know has created the beast of internalized colonization: a form of genocide and cruelty that continues to wreak havoc among cultures who predate the United States and those who come seeking fraudulent dreams. Behind You Is The Sea is a spellbinding, complexly simple examination of family, culture, and what it means to exist, what it means to be seen, and what it takes to make invisible visible. This novel will capture your heart and mind." —Morgan Talty, award-winning author of Night of the Living Rez
"There's a quiet power to Behind You Is the Sea that left me feeling a sense of awe. Susan Muaddi Darraj knows how to create a world of complex, rich emotions and unforgettable characters that live on beyond the last page. Darraj is simply one of our best." —Rion Amilcar Scott, author of The World Doesn't Require You
This information about Behind You Is the Sea was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Susan Muaddi Darraj is the author of A Curious Land, a novel in stories which earned an American Book Award and was a finalist for a Palestine Book Award. In 2018, she was named a Ford Fellow by USA Artists. A past winner of the Maryland State Art Council's Independent Artist Award, she is also the author of Farah Rocks, the first children's book series to feature a Palestinian-American character. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and teaches at Johns Hopkins University.
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