The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 28 April 2005
by Rabih Alameddine
Sarah Nour el-Din is named after the great, and still famous after a century, actress, Sarah Bernhardt. Her grandfather was in love with the actress, as were many others, of course, and as she grows up, he tells her many romantic and racy stories of the divine Sarah's life. Young Sarah, though, is a character torn by identity, politics and turbulent family life. In this novel, which must be described as inventive, Sarah wades through her troubled existence. She doesn't get very far, but the reader learns a lot about her life, and there is a lot to it. Sarah is the child of a Beirut doctor of Druze descent. She has several siblings and half-siblings. Her mother is American, and was divorced and shipped back to America by her father when Sarah was still very young. This seems to have driven much of the disjointed life Sarah goes on to lead, and to have engendered other disfunctions in the family. Far away now, her husband and son returned to Beirut, Sarah still is having trouble finding solid ground in her life in San Francisco.
As the subtitle suggests, this is a novel in first chapters. All of the chapters are labeled Chapter 1 or some variant of that. They each introduce the story in some way, but the tale continues to unwind throughout the book. It is hard to say if each chapter would stand as a solid first chapter of any other book, especially once the reader comes to know the characters a little more. Variations in style and approach -- memoir vs. novel, for example -- make for subtle variations in the story. It can give the impression of an author at sea, unsure how to tell his story. Or it can come off as a slightly gimicky approach. Eventually, the reader may forget the innovative structure and become caught up in what is an interesting and well-told tale of one woman's cultural conflicts and family tragedies.