A novel-in-stories captures PalestinianAmerican lives

Like many first- and second-generation Americans, Palestinianexperience an often uneasy dual sense of identity, too Arab for America, too Western for Palestine. This is a kind of existential ambivalence that is lived out in the world, but also among family members at home. Nowhere is this dynamic more poignantly on display than in Susan Muaddi Darraj’s debut novel, “Behind You is the Sea.”

Arab first in America

Following a thriving Palestinian-American community in Baltimore, the novel moves among the stories of a handful of families. In the chapter “Ride Along” Marcus Salameh, a police officer, is conflicted by his father’s desire for his family to be “Arab first,” not only honoring religious and social customs common in the Palestinian village from which he immigrated, but also rejecting anything he doesn’t admire about America — including his son’s career.

The tension between father and son is palpable, especially now that his mother has died. She possessed a “softer” view. “You are noos-noos, half-Arab, because of us, half-American, because you were born here. It doesn’t have to be a problem for you — make it something good.” That desire to make “something good” out of difficult situations is a theme that runs throughout “Behind You in the Sea.”

In “Gyroscopes” high school student Layla Marwan is a developing Renaissance woman — a committed student of physics with a penchant for engineering and a devoted member of the Drama Club, often crafting the technical aspects of the school’s plays and musicals.

However, when “Aladdin” is chosen as that year’s production, she is dismayed — a feeling shared with seemingly no one, not even other Arab students. “They have a new movie now. It’s not racist,” she’s told, but still she remainsunconvinced.

Too often Arabs in America are represented at the extremes. The “good Arab,” who is educated, cosmopolitan, liberal — and Western, and the “evil Arab,” who terrorizes innocents to accomplish political aims. Or, as is the case of Jasmine in “Aladdin,” the seductive princess who possesses all the exotic charm of the East.

All of these representations are caricatures. Layla with her intelligence and charisma works hard to reject these stereotypes, even as the productionreinforces them.

While most of Muaddi Darraj’s novel mines the private lives of her characters, especially issues related to the consequences of women who are seen as “haram,” — marrying the wrong sort of men or becoming pregnant outside of marriage or even making the choice of prioritizing career over family — a thread of the political is quietly woven into the plot.

Often small moments, like when Marcus’s father says he should get married and he thinks, “I ignore him every time … because if there is anything he hates more than Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s [potential fiancee] Michelle Santangelo.” In this way, Muaddi Darraj reminds the reader that there are other stakes at play for this community.

American in Palestine

Only in “Escorting the Body” does the political play a direct role. In this chapter the reader meets Marcus Salameh again when his estranged father has died and it falls to the dutiful son to bring his father’s body back to Palestine for burial.

It is a request that Marcus faces with little enthusiasm — he still doesn’t know how to feel about the father who had cut him out of his life and, importantly, he has never been to Palestine.

Fortunately, he meets Rita who acts as his guide and local fixer, helping him to negotiate both the bureaucratic and cultural aspects of his mission. As the days pass, Marcus begins to learn about Rita’s past. She is one of the victims of the Intifada, arrested and sexually abused by the Israelis.

“We don’t talk about it,” one neighbor tells Marcus. “The boys with the stones, yes, we talk about them, but not the girls.” When she is eventually released, Rita is publicly hailed as a hero but privately shunned. It is perhapsonly Marcus, an outsider despite his ties of blood, who cansee Rita without bias.

Throughout “Behind You is the Sea,” Muaddi Darraj gives us intimate access to these characters, revealing both the difficult and the redeeming aspects of their lives. It is the portrait of a community whose humanity is always on display in these pages. The novel is a message whose timeliness could not have been anticipated. But, in these days of conflict in Palestine, it is most welcome.