Chasing Shadows: A Novel

by Leila Yusaf Chung

In the evening, Abu Fadi peeled oranges and apples and recounted stories of Palestine, orange groves and the house with the large wooden door that awaited their return. He pulled a black metal key out of his pocket and said, ‘See, children, this big key is to open our front door. I locked the house before I left. Everything is waiting for us in Palestine.This is the story of Lavi, a middle-aged Polish Jew who, desperate to have children, flees his barren marriage and moves to British Palestine in 1945. He converts to Islam and is soon arranged to marry a beautiful young Palestinian girl, Keira. Months after the birth of their daughter, the Jewish state of Israel is created and Lavi and his young family are forced to settle amid the chaos of a refugee camp in Lebanon. Eight years and three children later, Keira courts the attention of young men in the camp with her sultry beauty. Then one day she disappears, leaving her children with unreliable memories, the hope of her survival and the persistence of their fears. Ajamia, Keira’s middle daughter, takes up the story – growing up in a Catholic orphanage in Beirut, the early years of civil war, her misadventures in France and her life in the mountains. But the ghosts of the past are close, and Ajamia returns to Beirut to find out the truth about her mother’s fate, her sister’s demise and settle once and for all the sins of the past. A debut novel of astounding force and compassion, Chasing Shadows is the story of Palestine’s trials, the clash of cultures, the brutality of tradition and the inheritance of loss across generations.

Genres: Fiction

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2014

Reviews

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moving from post-war Poland to the birth of the State of Israel, through the years of Beirut’s civil war and the first days of Iran’s revolution, Chasing Shadows shares the tumultuous fates of Abu Fadi, his wife Keira and their children, Taheya, Fadi, Ajamia and Miriam in this uncommon debut by Leila Yusaf Chung.

The narrative is largely divided between the third person viewpoint of Abu Fadi, and Ajamia's, written in the first, with brief chapters exposing the perceptions of the other family members, shifting in time and place.

Abu Fadi's story begins with his desertion of his identity, and barren wife, in Poland to make a new life in Palestine. After converting to Islam he takes a bride, teenage beauty Keira, who bears him four living children as the family is shunted from Palestine to Syria and finally re-settled in a Lebanon refuge camp.
Ajamia is six when her mother disappears, presumed by Ajamia to be dead, and she and her siblings are farmed out to an orphanage, rejoining their father only once their primary education has finished. After high school she attends nursing college, but soon after her graduation the Lebanese civil war erupts and Ajamia escapes to France. Her time in the country is brief, after she is misled by a persistent suitor and finds herself in the midst of the Iranian revolution, she is returned to Beirut only to find her family has disappeared in the chaos. Twenty years later, Ajamia is the single mother of a daughter Marianne, longing to find her missing family, and solve the mystery of her mother's fate.

Loss is the major theme of this novel - loss of homeland, of family, of culture, and of identity. However for Ajamia it is the loss of her mother, Keira, that defines her. Though the Middle East conflicts disrupt and displace Abu Fadi's family they are still forced to face the ordinary moments of living.

I didn't always find it easy to follow the narrative of Chasing Shadows but I found it to be an interesting and thought provoking examination of history, culture and family.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

Set in the turmoil of the Middle East this was supposedly giving me an insight into the life of a family over two generations. I found that it swapped between the present and the past too frequently with similar names in both generations which I found made for a strained, rather than relaxing read.

[Elizabeth Buchel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that I couldn't put down. Leila Chung spins a remarkable tale of a family who live through the early days of civil war in Lebanon, as well as the breakdown of their own family unit. I found Chung's use of focalisation and time-shift to be extremely sophisticated, and the text's cliffhangers definitely kept me turning the page.
I would read this book again - and again.

[Libbydavidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of this family gives an insight into how complex the Israeli/Palistinian issue and family relationships are.

[Kate Griggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting account of a family across different generations amidst war and tragedies. When reading sometimes unsure of the time period in relation to the story as it moved around a lot, but overall an engaging read.

[Anthea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written debut novel. Abu Fadi is a middle aged Islam convert who in his previous life was Lavi, Polish Jew, who fled to Palestine driven by a strong desire to father children. He marries 13 year old Palestinian Keira and starts a family. All is happy and good until political changes force them to flee to a refugee camp in Lebanon. Keira is very beautiful and attracts the attention of many of the men in the camp. Ten years pass and Abu Fadi and Keira have four children until one day, Keira suddenly disappears.

This story is mainly told through Ajamia, the middle daughter of Abu Fadi and Keira although the other family members are present throughout the book. Ajamia moves from Palestine to Beirut and then allows herself to be enticed to Iran where she finds herself imprisoned at the time of the Shah’s downfall. Due to her skills as a nurse she is freed from prison and returns to her homeland where she tries to locate her family. Ajaima eventually has a child and is a single parent for almost 20 years until she decides she is going to find out what really happened to her mother and her younger sister Miriam, who is also dead. Thus Ajamia begins her journey, encouraged by her daughter Marianne to find out about her father, brother and remaining sister.


I will be recommending this to my book group to read.

[Shayma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the author tried to do too much with this story, covering too many conflicts and tragedies for the narrative to have any emotional impact. I wanted to care about this - it covers my country's history, I share the culture.. Somehow, for a story that centred on familial fractures resulting from the disappearance of Ajamia's mother decades earlier, the author's handling of emotional trauma was rather simplistic and flat, and more often 'told' rather than shown through character actions and behaviours. It would have benefitted from a smaller scope with more depth. I know the subject matter (families and the political environment of Palestine, Lebanon, and Israel) is incredibly complicated, and that it would be difficult to tell just one strand of this story that isn't entangled with a hundred other stories.. but this was too much.
It's possible that the rushed treatment of the psychological aftermath of orphanhood, displacement, warfare, imprisonment, grief, and ubiquitous family lies was a deliberate narrative tool demonstrating Ajamia's denial or inability to dwell on difficult past experiences..but between the mediocre dialogue and prose, the impact of this technique is lost.

[Summer Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit this story had me hooked and reading right until the end. But at times it felt a bit rushed and as if the author tried to cram too many stories into the narrative. Subsequently there were character stories that I thought needed more depth to do them justice. The writing style was also very simplistic and lacked the eloquence of more accomplished authors. However, I did enjoy the read. I just don't think I would read it twice.

[Déwi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 4 1/2 star read! I could not put this book down. While there were some parts which seemed a bit far fetched most of the time I felt like I was reading a memoir because of the historical facts intertwined in the story. Sometimes I felt the author was trying to tell too much at once, particularly in relation to the cultural and religious facts which is why I didn't give it 5 stars. Thoroughly enjoyed this and hope to read more from this author.

[Kelly Dombroski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating read. I found the characters very frustrating and just like ordinary people I guess, but with the symmetry of lives that comes through in fiction. I liked the inclusion of Palestinian, Israeli, Polish and more characters, and the book highlighted for me the way that the Palestinian situation pushed many Palestinians towards Islamic identify in ways that may not have been present before.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite tragic, but with some warm, humorous family moments. I think in the hands of a more experienced writer this novel could have been really powerful, but as it was there were some pretty clunky plot points (Tehran and the mountains - used to get Ajamia back to Lebanon and into middle-age, respectively). Overall I liked it.

[Helen R-t · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book and such a haunting reminder that there are 2 sides to all conflict.

[Sunitha · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narrative was often hard t