Finding Nouf: A Novel - Dark Publications

Location: Home » body art - tattoo » Contemporary » Finding Nouf: A Novel

Similar Items:

•	The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
•	City of Thieves: A Novel
•	The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel (Oprah Book Club #62)
•	Say You're One of Them
•	Slip of the Knife: A Novel

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Zoe Ferraris's electrifying debut of taut psychological suspense offers an unprecedented window into Saudi Arabia and the lives of men and women there. When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing, along with a truck and her favorite camel, her prominent family calls on Nayir al-Sharqi, a desert guide, to lead a search party. Ten days later, just as Nayir is about to give up in frustration, her body is discovered by anonymous desert travelers. But when the coroner's office determines that Nouf died not of dehydration but from drowning, and her family seems suspiciously uninterested in getting at the truth, Nayir takes it upon himself to find out what really happened to her.

This mission will push gentle, hulking, pious Nayir, a Palestinian orphan raised by his bachelor uncle, to delve into the secret life of a rich, protected teenage girl -- in one of the most rigidly gender-segregated of Middle Eastern societies. Initially horrified at the idea of a woman bold enough to bare her face and to work in public, Nayir soon realizes that if he wants to gain access to the hidden world of women, he will have to join forces with Katya Hijazi, a lab worker at the coroner's office. Their partnership challenges Nayir, bringing him face to face with his desire for female companionship and the limitations imposed by his beliefs. It also ultimately leads them both to surprising revelations. Fast-paced and utterly transporting, Finding Nouf offers an intimate glimpse inside a closed society and a riveting literary mystery.

Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars

Love and Consequences!? July 25, 2008
24 out of 38 found this review helpful

Imagine a new novel, let's call it "A Passage to America," which purports to be a "trenchant portrait of American society." The action is set in New York City, where a young woman may have run away into the hinder land, or been murdered, in a place no more than an hour from her home, but the investigator is told to confine his search to "radii extending outward" from Peoria. One theory is that she may have taken an "overnight bus" to Mexico City. Her family is quite rich, typical of people located so close to Wall Street; they have their own island, connected by a causeway, two kilometers out in the East River. Being typical Americans, they have a stable on the island filled with horses, which they can all ride, just like the Marlboro man bringing his Christmas tree home in deep snow. America is truly a sex-obsessed society, and virtually all married couples swap partners nightly. All the wives are blondes, with pendulant breasts, in the best Bay Watch fashion. And if they are not having sex then they are killing someone, which is what cowboys normally do. A few people in deep back waters outside the United States believe these stereotypes hold for all Americans.

I just finished a great novel, Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose." A deep, true inquiry into the human condition, with honest human interactions, in settings depicted with careful accuracy. Would Stegner have had his leading protagonist, Susan Burling, fly back to the East Coast in the 1890's?

In Ferraris's novel you have numerous errors in time and place. As Sulayyil is no where near Jeddah; it is impossible to take an overnight bus from Jeddah to Muscat; the Saudis do not allow "rich Europeans" to make archaeological digs searching for the tomb of Abraham; there are no islands two kilometers off the coast near Jeddah, especially not ones surrounded by steep cliffs (p23). First prayer call occurs much before first light, and for sure, save for the month of Ramadan, young women are not shopping at that hour, nor are any shops open! (p51) A medical examiner could not have flown from Riyadh, and have been examining the body before the protagonist, Nayir, arrived at the morgue. The above is just a very small sampling, all within the first 100 pages, but even in outright fantasy books, there should be the discipline of internal consistency; early in the book we learn that the cause of Nouf's death is drowning in the desert, yet on page 91 we are told: "In Jeddah it rained once a year, for approximately five minutes if they were lucky." They are also drilling for oil near Jeddah, and not in the Eastern Province, where it is located.

Far more troubling than the wild pastiche of time and place are the human interactions. They ranged from the truly impossible, to the highly improbable, to the very unlikely. No Saudi family, rich or poor, would hire another Saudi, totally unrelated to be a young woman's "escort." In fact the entire concept of an "escort," as opposed to the accompaniment of a male family member is totally alien to Saudi society, yet both Nouf and Katya had one, doing the most improbable things. In the real world of Saudi Arabia, if a Katya wanted to go to an optometrist, she would have had her driver taker her there, and she would have gone in herself. There would have been no need for a related or non-related male to accompany her. No professional Saudi woman, who in her work environment did not wear the burqa, would suddenly put one on because a male was displeased. (p13). The free-lance "detective," Nayir, wonders how Nouf might have learned how to drive a car, yet never wonders how she might have learned to ride a camel! The most hackney cliche is of course the answer: they are all "camel jockeys." No rich 16 year-old Saudi woman can ride a camel - in America at least, some 16 year olds can ride horses. "The punishment for having sex out of wedlock - for even being caught with a single woman...was a public beheading."(p 83) Pleeeze! In another scene, Nayir, the Palestinian "detective," in civilian clothes, accompanied by Miss Hijazi, a Saudi wearing a burqa, somehow gain access to a Western compound, walk up to a Western resident, and inquire about the another Westerner, Scarberry. `"Do you know the address?" Nayir asked. "We're investigating a crime and we need to ask him a few questions." "Sure. He's on Peachtree." The man gave him the directions and the house number.' Pleeeze! In reality the Westerner would have challenged his identity, and given him no information. Nayir somehow manages to waltz his way through the entire novel, with people in the most improbable situations opening their hearts to him and "trusting" him. Hussein, Othman's father, who is a guest worker from southern Iraq, somehow brings his six year old son to the Kingdom without his mother. In reality, the child would have been left in Iraq, with relatives, like all other guest workers do (p175) All of the above is only a small sampling of the improbable to impossible.

As a particular pet peeve, during Ms. Ferraris brief stay in the Kingdom she apparently learned what a "miswak" is, and the term appears repeatedly, yet she never learned that the Saudi "robe" is called a thobe.

For those, Saudis and expatriates, who are familiar with the actual life in the Kingdom, it would be a useful exercise to expand the partial lists above.

It has been only a few months since the "Love and Consequences" book fraud was revealed. The circumstances are similar, a book is hyped, receives a wide assortment of positive reviews, yet no one, the agent, the publishing house and its editors, or the reviewers challenged the book's authenticity. It took a truthful sister to reveal the scam. There is a difference however. L and C claimed to be a memoir, "Finding Nouf" is a novel - but does that mean "anything goes"? Aren't the best novels, the ones that really should be hyped, authentic, truthful to the time and place, and insightful of the human condition?

The promoters should at least be embarrassed. They can decide to be angry at the "truthful sister," as was often done on the L and C fraud. Or they can take the far more constructive approach, and ponder how something like this could happen yet again. Does anyone who "reviews" these books, or loans their name to a blurb, actually READ the book? And if so, do they always set their critical faculties aside? There was a subset of people who claimed that they did not care that L and C was a fraud, it was still a "fun read." No doubt, some will take the same approach to "Finding Nouf," but please do not think you will obtain "unparalleled insight into (Saudi) daily life" or that the book "yanks the veil off of Saudi Arabian culture." The book is a profound measure of our willingness to accept the wildest caricatures of those who "live on the other side of the river."

5 out of 5 stars

A Genuine Whodunit in the Desert! July 15, 2008
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

Finding Nouf is an intriguing, often suspenseful murder mystery set against the backdrop of simmering generational differences in modern Saudi Arabian society. The two central characters, Nayir al-Sharqi and Katya Hijazi, represent opposite ends of the great divide between the older Wahhabist Sunni establishment and an emerging, decidedly less observant younger generation of Saudis. Their unusual partnership, entered into in order to solve the mystery, exemplifies some of the struggles occurring between older, traditional Arab men and younger, more liberated women relative to acceptable roles for women in society.

Nayir, actually a Palestinian, is almost a caricature of the pious Muslim. Despite the bonds imposed on him by restrictive Saudi society, he longs for romance and struggles to reconcile his need for companionship with his strict adherence to Sharia law. Interestingly, he seems to chafe against those oppressive bonds, particularly as they restrict his ability to work with women. Even making eye contact with a woman causes him great angst. As a result of this personal torment and the baggage associated with a previously failed relationship, Nayir is in a sort of self-imposed romantic exile - living a Spartan, reclusive existence on a sailboat in Jeddah harbor.

Katya by contrast represents the newly empowered younger generation of Saudi women entirely comfortable in their hard-won independence. While complying with such government-enforced customs as remaining covered from head to toe in public, Katya reaches considerably higher professionally than many Saudi women - even earning a Ph.D. Employed as a medical examiner, she spreads her wings in investigating a murder that strikes uncomfortably close to home - the home, that is, of her fiance. Nevertheless, she is both patient and determined in her quest to solve the crime and to bring the perpetrator to justice.

Finding Nouf is loaded with twists and turns as Katya joins forces with Nayir in a sort of Sarah Sidle (CSI) meets Columbo. To this odd couple of an investigative team Katya brings knowledge of modern medical forensics while Nayir brings a dogged persistence combined with ample experience in good old-fashioned gumshoe detective work. Their diverging points of view give way to a productive, though at times uneasy, professional collaboration, and their disagreement regarding traditional male and female roles eases into a casual social relationship. Yes, they even go on a date - though Katya (predictably) brings her obligatory (and omnipresent) escort.

In Finding Nouf, Zoe Ferraris quite deftly captures the struggles occurring in modern Saudi society today while at the same time entertaining the reader with a genuine whodunit in the desert. What make this story so compelling is the author's depiction of the challenges of living in a closed, devoutly Muslim society and the effect those challenges can have on members of that society. Particularly for younger Saudis who are perhaps more susceptible to the lure of Western freedoms and by extension the Saudi government might argue, immoral behaviors characteristic of more permissive Western societies, the restrictiveness can be stifling and might even drive Saudi citizens to extremes of behavior.

Those individuals had better hope that Nayir and Katya are not investigating them. With these two sleuths on the case, their secrets will not remain secret for long!

Well worth the read!

5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant. Simply brilliant. June 3, 2008
9 out of 12 found this review helpful

Zoe Ferraris has written a riveting page-turner set in Saudi Arabia where an ancient world collides head-on with the modern on a daily basis.

This is a must read for any mystery lover who craves psychological suspense and wants to be utterly transported. It is a fast-paced and brilliantly written book rich with unforgettable characters from Nayir, a wannabe Saudi "Columbo" detective, to fearless Katya, a lab worker at the local coroner's office.

FINDING NOUF is an important book, a very important book. In a gender-segregated society where women often live out their lives in fear, I predict "A hundred veils to fall" (Rumi).

5 out of 5 stars

"He imagined he saw her smile." August 25, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

Despite the fact that the Middle East's role in world affairs increases as each decade passes, most Westerners have only a hazy comprehension of the region's culture and its people. And, ever since the chain of events that began with the September 2001 murders in New York City, what we do know is largely distorted by the media coverage that tends to deal almost exclusively with the terrorist segment of the Muslim world. That makes a novel like Finding Nouf, one that tells its story through the eyes of ordinary Saudi citizens trying to do the right thing despite the constraints of Saudi Arabian society, one of the more intriguing books of 2008.

When sixteen-year-old Nouf ash-Shrawi disappears from her wealthy family's isolated home, it is at first hoped that she has simply run away, perhaps suffering a bad case of nerves about her impending marriage. But an examination of her body after she has been found dead in the desert leaves little doubt that Nouf has been murdered and Nayir ash-Sharqi, a family friend and desert tracker who failed in his quest to find her before she died, feels both the guilt of that failure and a responsibility to determine exactly what happened to the girl.

Nayir finds a ready ally in Katya Hijazi, a lab technician who, like Nayir, is a friend of the Shrawi family (she is the fiancee of Nouf's adopted brother, Othman) and who has been asked to keep an eye on the official investigation into Nouf's death. But Katya is more than Nayir, a strictly religious Palestinian who has had only limited contact with Saudi women, knows how to handle. He finds her aggressiveness and willingness to display her face in all but the most public of venues to be shocking, especially when he learns that she is engaged to his good friend, Othman.

But even more shocking to Nayir is his realization that Katya's personality and behavior make her so attractive to him that he has to continually remind himself that she is to be married to his best friend. Part of the charm of Finding Nouf is watching the relationship between Nayir and Katya evolve during their investigation into one of mutual respect and affection, something that neither could have dreamed would ever happen.

Nayir and Katya link their individual skills in a way that slowly uncovers the facts surrounding Nouf's disappearance and death and, although what they find brings them dangerously close to disturbing truths about the Shrawi family, they remain determined to bring her killer to justice. Zoe Ferraris has created two very likable amateur Saudi sleuths who deserve a sequel, a hope that the book's ending seems, in fact, to encourage.

Finding Nouf is a fun mystery that, along the way, allows the reader a look at ordinary Saudi citizens and their relationship to each other and to the wealthier class. It explores both the formal and informal relationship between Saudi men and women and wonderfully illustrates the pressures felt by both sexes in a society willing to deal out harsh punishment to those not strictly observing the sexual mores of Islam and Saudi Arabian culture. Zoe Ferraris has written a first-class mystery but what makes it special is the unique setting in which she has placed it. This one is not to be missed.

5 out of 5 stars

Finding an excellent author July 20, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Finding Nouf is a beautifully crafted novel in terms of characters, plot and detail. As someone who has traveled periodically in the Middle East, I found the author's sense of place, her use of both Arabic and English, and descriptions of daily details to be accurate.

The issues and realities of tradition and contemporary life, described specifically in terms of gender relationships, was balanced and portrays well the multiple tensions between custom and twenty-first century relationship possibilities.

Because the author has experienced life firsthand within the cultural contexts she describes, hopefully we will hear more of this genuine and engaging authorial voice.

Powered by Associate-O-Matic

T-shirts, Posters

Pentagram T-shirts, bags, etc...

Gothic Posters