Phil Miller

[ Our] struggle itself is not against them as a people, but against what infects them—the idea that they are a better form of human, that God prefers them, that they are inherently a superior race, and we are disposable. (p. 300)

The importance of this quotation is underscored by its context. An intimate discussion between Bilal and Nahr concerns James Baldwin’s novel The Fire Next Time, which has opened Nahr’s eyes to the similarity of Palestinians and Black people: “There were others in the world who, like us, were seen as worthless.” Despite such lovelessness, these “others” were loved “at once and forever against the loveless world.” (p. 298)

So, using the title as a lens, consider examples in this story of the lovelessness experienced by the Palestinian characters. As background, there’s the 1948 catastrophe of massive displacement by Zionist settlers as the United Nations recognizes the state of Israel. Nahr’s mother’s family is forced to leave their home in Haifa. Then, in 1967, her paternal grandmother is forced to give up her home. Nahr is born in Kuwait, in a ghetto of Palestinians, who are treated as second-class residents but not as terribly mistreated there as in Israel. When Iraq invades Kuwait, Nahr’s family is among those Palestinians who put their trust in Saddam Hussein as the wealthy Kuwait Arabs flee. However, the American response to Iraq brings back those who have fled Kuwait, and the Palestinians are forced to flee to Jordan as refugees.

Naïve Nahr marries Mhammad, only to encounter a loveless marriage due to her husband’s homosexuality. The theme of homosexuality recurs throughout the book with a considerable degree of sympathy, but in this case, it’s a manifestation of lovelessness for the main character.

By this time, Nahr’s experience of the loveless world has driven her into the company of some women who attend parties with wealthy men. She loves to dance, so she dances wildly. Before she realizes what’s happening, she is raped for the first time. She becomes identified as a sex worker, which wrecks her self-image and leaves lasting wounds, physically and spiritually. Of course, the root of women’s sexual trauma is toxic sexism spread throughout the patriarchal culture. One theme in the novel is the struggle to find intimacy after such damage.

The framework for the narrative is “the cube,” the solitary confinement cell where Nahr writes her story. Section by section, along with changes in the geographical setting, she describes the dimensions of her barren surroundings, four concrete walls, a concrete floor and ceiling, where her imagination explores her memories in the context of the theme of love against lovelessness.

The settings move with the chronology from Kuwait to Jordan to Palestine. Nahr, having been born and brought up in Kuwait, thought of it as “normal” and of Amman as miserable. Even so, as she adjusts to Jordan, she is not motivated to visit Palestine, the home of her mother and grandmother, until she understands that it is where she must go to get a divorce of her long-estranged husband. Reflecting on such changes, she later says, “Tragic, how we adjusted our sense of normal.” (p. 309)

After arriving in Palestine, she recognizes the bigger picture of why these moves have been necessary, and why checkpoints and curfews have seemed normal. These are not merely her personal experiences; they are the circumstances of the Palestinians in their struggle to survive. With the friends who welcome her in Palestine, Nahr wakes up to the political realities surrounding her.

Since childhood, Nahr has shown a rebellious nature, an irreverent and defiant attitude. In one sense, she displays this through dancing. Even when many women are dancing at a party or celebration, it is Nahr’s dancing which hypnotizes those who cannot help noticing her. She describes it as being lost in the music, but also as chaos.

Nearly all the characters in this story are Muslim, with varying degrees of piety, ranging from the paradox of the atheist who worships at the mosque every week, to the older women who adhere to daily prayers yet rise to curse their enemies. Browse the glossary at the front of the book, and you’ll see how many common phrases express their relationship to God. Allahu akbar! God is bigger—than our afflictions.

Yet, from my perspective, I notice the absence of Palestinian Christians, who have been my personal link to the people who live there. The Christians I know teach and strive to practice nonviolence.

But violence permeates this story of the loveless world. Scanning her memories of the Palestinians killed, arrested, wounded, crippled, displaced, and disappeared, Nahr comments, “It was hard not to become numb to the violence and those sadistic numbers.” (p. 313) I have mentioned the violent treatment of women by men, particularly non-Palestinian Arab men. There are also many detailed accounts of violence by Israeli soldiers and settlers inflicted upon Palestinians. However, the momentum of the story leads toward the violent resistance shown by the Palestinians including, in her own way, Nahr. The defiance at the core of her personality leads her into a role as a revolutionary.
On the face of it, this novel is a story of a loveless world; yet remember the source of that phrase. It’s a story of love against the loveless world. There’s, of course, the love that binds members of a family together regardless of how much they may squabble. There’s the love that draws a man and a woman together even amidst danger. Ultimately, hidden deeply, there’s the necessity to accept with love the oppressors James Baldwin says are “still trapped in a history which they do not understand.” (p. 299)

I told a friend I intended to read three novels by Susan Abulhawa. “Are they a trilogy?” she asked. No, but they’re all about the struggles of Palestinians. Believe it or not, as soon as I typed the previous sentence, I checked our mailbox, and guess what? The third novel by Susan Abulhawa—Mornings in Jenin—was there for me. It was the first of the three, and Lovelessis the most recent. Like the newly arrived book, Loveless has both a glossary and a set of 22 excellent discussion questions. So, why not introduce your reading group friends to this outstanding author?

[ Our] struggle itself is not against them as a people, but against what infects them—the idea that they are a better form of human, that God prefers them, that they are inherently a superior race, and we are disposable. (p. 300)

The importance of this quotation is underscored by its context. An intimate discussion between Bilal and Nahr concerns James Baldwin’s novel The Fire Next Time, which has opened Nahr’s eyes to the similarity of Palestinians and Black people: “There were others in the world who, like us, were seen as worthless.” Despite such lovelessness, these “others” were loved “at once and forever against the loveless world.” (p. 298)

So, using the title as a lens, consider examples in this story of the lovelessness experienced by the Palestinian characters. As background, there’s the 1948 catastrophe of massive displacement by Zionist settlers as the United Nations recognizes the state of Israel. Nahr’s mother’s family is forced to leave their home in Haifa. Then, in 1967, her paternal grandmother is forced to give up her home. Nahr is born in Kuwait, in a ghetto of Palestinians, who are treated as second-class residents but not as terribly mistreated there as in Israel. When Iraq invades Kuwait, Nahr’s family is among those Palestinians who put their trust in Saddam Hussein as the wealthy Kuwait Arabs flee. However, the American response to Iraq brings back those who have fled Kuwait, and the Palestinians are forced to flee to Jordan as refugees.

Naïve Nahr marries Mhammad, only to encounter a loveless marriage due to her husband’s homosexuality. The theme of homosexuality recurs throughout the book with a considerable degree of sympathy, but in this case, it’s a manifestation of lovelessness for the main character.

By this time, Nahr’s experience of the loveless world has driven her into the company of some women who attend parties with wealthy men. She loves to dance, so she dances wildly. Before she realizes what’s happening, she is raped for the first time. She becomes identified as a sex worker, which wrecks her self-image and leaves lasting wounds, physically and spiritually. Of course, the root of women’s sexual trauma is toxic sexism spread throughout the patriarchal culture. One theme in the novel is the struggle to find intimacy after such damage.

The framework for the narrative is “the cube,” the solitary confinement cell where Nahr writes her story. Section by section, along with changes in the geographical setting, she describes the dimensions of her barren surroundings, four concrete walls, a concrete floor and ceiling, where her imagination explores her memories in the context of the theme of love against lovelessness.

The settings move with the chronology from Kuwait to Jordan to Palestine. Nahr, having been born and brought up in Kuwait, thought of it as “normal” and of Amman as miserable. Even so, as she adjusts to Jordan, she is not motivated to visit Palestine, the home of her mother and grandmother, until she understands that it is where she must go to get a divorce of her long-estranged husband. Reflecting on such changes, she later says, “Tragic, how we adjusted our sense of normal.” (p. 309)

After arriving in Palestine, she recognizes the bigger picture of why these moves have been necessary, and why checkpoints and curfews have seemed normal. These are not merely her personal experiences; they are the circumstances of the Palestinians in their struggle to survive. With the friends who welcome her in Palestine, Nahr wakes up to the political realities surrounding her.

Since childhood, Nahr has shown a rebellious nature, an irreverent and defiant attitude. In one sense, she displays this through dancing. Even when many women are dancing at a party or celebration, it is Nahr’s dancing which hypnotizes those who cannot help noticing her. She describes it as being lost in the music, but also as chaos.

Nearly all the characters in this story are Muslim, with varying degrees of piety, ranging from the paradox of the atheist who worships at the mosque every week, to the older women who adhere to daily prayers yet rise to curse their enemies. Browse the glossary at the front of the book, and you’ll see how many common phrases express their relationship to God. Allahu akbar! God is bigger—than our afflictions.

Yet, from my perspective, I notice the absence of Palestinian Christians, who have been my personal link to the people who live there. The Christians I know teach and strive to practice nonviolence.

But violence permeates this story of the loveless world. Scanning her memories of the Palestinians killed, arrested, wounded, crippled, displaced, and disappeared, Nahr comments, “It was hard not to become numb to the violence and those sadistic numbers.” (p. 313) I have mentioned the violent treatment of women by men, particularly non-Palestinian Arab men. There are also many detailed accounts of violence by Israeli soldiers and settlers inflicted upon Palestinians. However, the momentum of the story leads toward the violent resistance shown by the Palestinians including, in her own way, Nahr. The defiance at the core of her personality leads her into a role as a revolutionary.
On the face of it, this novel is a story of a loveless world; yet remember the source of that phrase. It’s a story of love against the loveless world. There’s, of course, the love that binds members of a family together regardless of how much they may squabble. There’s the love that draws a man and a woman together even amidst danger. Ultimately, hidden deeply, there’s the necessity to accept with love the oppressors James Baldwin says are “still trapped in a history which they do not understand.” (p. 299)

I told a friend I intended to read three novels by Susan Abulhawa. “Are they a trilogy?” she asked. No, but they’re all about the struggles of Palestinians. Believe it or not, as soon as I typed the previous sentence, I checked our mailbox, and guess what? The third novel by Susan Abulhawa—Mornings in Jenin—was there for me. It was the first of the three, and Lovelessis the most recent. Like the newly arrived book, Loveless has both a glossary and a set of 22 excellent discussion questions. So, why not introduce your reading group friends to this outstanding author?

The story begins in Beit Daras, a town of some 700 homes in the northeastern district of Gaza. In 1948, Zionist troops massacred many of the inhabitants and imprisoned or drove away the survivors despite attempts by Sudanese soldiers to defend the people. A family tree at the front of the book shows the four generations of the story’s characters (and is an indispensable help in learning how they’re connected).

After the ethnic cleansing of Beit Daras, this surviving family continues to suffer as refugees in Gaza. The brother goes to Egypt to find work, which then takes him and his bride to North Carolina. The sister stays in Gaza, marries, and gives birth to a dozen sons and one daughter. Her oldest son spends the prime of his life in Israeli prisons.

Like a deck of cards divided in half and shuffled together, the story swings back and forth between the sister’s large family in Gaza and the brother’s small family in North Carolina until, as if by chance, the cards get shuffled back together in Gaza. But don’t let me spoil things by revealing too much.

As the women in Gaza hold a conversation, author Abulhawa says they’re discussing “how to carry on without corrosive bitterness that comes from helpless rage.” (p. 246) Over a decade after this novel’s publication, that question smolders in the minds of those who see the ethnic cleansing and genocide taking place as Zionist settlers continue removing Palestinians from their homes and land not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank.

The family member who was born in North Carolina seeks the answer to this question in “a thread that links your years . . . another living person who just knows you.” Her life as a Palestinian uprooted from her relatives and culture has been like a necklace of beads broken and scattered on the ground.

This book is not antisemitic, but it’s fiercely antizionist. The characters benefit from tunnels which enable commerce and travel to trickle between Egypt and Gaza. They cheer for Hamas, which to them seems the only effective force for improving their situation.

While this novel takes aim at Israel and its American backers, the literary qualities outshine its polemics. The reader will find tenderness, humor, and joy amid violence and heartbreak. I plan to read at least two more novels by Susan Abulhawa, whose writing measures up to that of others I admire, such as Abraham Verghese and Barbara Kingsolver.