A Woman Is No Man, written by Etaf Rum, was recommended to me by a good friend, and now I recommend it to you. It tells the story of three generations of Arab women living in the US. A tale of immigration, of balancing assimilation vs separation of culture, and balancing tradition vs progress.
Deya is beginning to meet with suitors arranged by her grandmother, Fareeda. Her parents, Isra and Adam, died in a car crash when she (and her sisters) were small. Deya has bigger dreams than settling down into marriage at 18. Dreams stoked by a note from a mysterious stranger who makes Deya question everything she’d been told about her parents.
“Too often being happy means being passive or playing it safe. There’s no skill required in happiness, no strength of character, nothing extraordinary. Its discontent that drives creation the most—passion, desire, defiance. Revolutions don’t come from a place of happiness. If anything, I think it’s sadness, or discontent at least, that’s at the root of everything beautiful.”
THE SECRETS WE SHARE; THE SECRETS WE KEEP (SPOILERS AHEAD)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Woman Is No Man. It is Etaf Rum’s debut novel, and it shows as it’s not a particularly sophisticated book. Its themes are often boldly outlined and repeated almost ad nauseam that women suffer culturally systemic abuses within Arab culture. But it is an honestly told story. It is heartbreaking, emotional, and raw. Perhaps most importantly is how Rum handles post-partum depression. Isra, the mother of Deya shown in flashback chapters, finds balancing her marriage, children, household duties, and her dreams difficult. She struggles with her love of reading, and the seemingly unrealistic expectations her stories have set for her. Isra wants more out of her life but finds herself unable to reach for it. She becomes lost in her depression, shrinking into herself to try and avoid abuse from her husband. Even toward the end of her story, when you know she is going to die, you still find yourself hoping and cheering for her as Isra takes her first real steps towards personal autonomy.
On the flipside of Isra’s story is Fareeda, her mother-in-law and household matriarch. An old, bitter woman who survived decades of abuse trying to make her life better for her family. She is a woman desperate for the approval of others, the keeper of dark secrets and the speaker of lies meant to improve the family’s status. It is an impossible task, one that comes crumbling down around Fareeda in the end. But Fareeda is not a bad woman, merely the product of the world she lives in. She grips to her culture as tightly as she for comfort out of fear. She provides strong contrast to Isra, and especially so to Deya.
I am looking forward to more work from Etaf Rum. I hope to see her grow as an author as I believe her stories have incredible bones.
“Sadness was like a cancer, she thought, a presence that staked it’s claim so quietly you might not even notice it until it was too late. She hoped her other daughters didn’t see.”
SUGGESTED READS
The Storyteller’s Secret, by Sejal Badani
A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
