In Tale of a Modern Concubine, Layla Hariry explores the plight of women. The main character, Isha (via evolutions of herself at different stages of her life) and her friends, each represent a different approach to being a woman in a world dominated by men. Isha is a half-American, half-Saudi woman who has lived in both countries, but who fits comfortably in neither society. Though educated in America and exposed to feminist ideology, gender equality remains an impossible ideal; the men Isha encounters throughout her life are almost universally predatory and abusive, or disappointing at best. Despite the word concubine in the title, Isha is a sheltered virgin who dreams of a protective man in her life who is both kind and passionate. However, throughout the novel, she repeatedly interacts with men who are anything but. In the denouement, Isha finally finds the fulfilling romantic relationship she has longed for, but it costs her literally everything.
For readers who care about such things, the sexual interactions between Isha and her oppressors are written with enough description to get the point across, yet without salacious detail. I found Isha's sensory obversations during these interactions to be believable from the point of view of a very sexually inexperienced young woman. While one particular biological detail seemed extreme (not going to spoil what it was), from a literary standpoint, this detail made sense as Isha's body itself seeking to defend herself from an abusive, callous man.
While Goodreads does not allow partial stars, I would have given the book 4.5 stars if that were an option. There were a handful of typographical errors, and one chapter in particular was written in an entirely different style from the rest of the book, which I found very disorienting. By itself, considering the content of that chapter, this style change would have been acceptable to me if the aggressor in that chapter had continued to pop up in Isha's life thereafter -- later in the novel, I would have liked to see her defeat this villain, who represents the ugliest side of male aggression. However, this final conflict never happened, leaving me feeling Isha was never able to free herself from the bind she found herself of being a vulnerable woman in a lecherous man's world.
Despite these small criticisms, in the main, I greatly enjoyed this book and found myself reading it far into the night several times. It displays a deep meditation on the various cultures in which it is set and is a thought-provoking exploration on the darker realities of the vulnerability of womanhood and the naivete of the ideology of gender equality. TALE OF A MODERN CONCUBINE: NIGHTS OF ARABIAN TERROR
“A masterpiece! An Arabian Doctor Zhivago of the 21st century.” “ An instant literary classic! ”Isha Mudrimeen is an Arabian young woman with an American mother. She returns home to Jeddah for summer following her first year of college in Texas confused, grappling with the suicide of her older sister Sharifa, and her own marginal halfie status in Jeddah society. Longing for love, yet abhorrent of the me-to dynamic she sees in dating before marriage, she’s left feeling alienated, anxious, and doomed. Nearing twenty her prospects for a good match are slipping away. All her closest friends in Jeddah are getting married and she fears being left behind. Why should she study abroad? She already feels too different, too American to fully fit socially back home.In Jeddah, Isha’s extended Meccan family recommends an ideal suitor through the traditional arranged marriage network. Isha is soon whisked into her first romance as the wife of Dr. Sultan Othman Binnas, a tall, handsome, blue-eyed, thirty-five-year-old medical doctor with a British accent from a prominent Hijazi merchant family.But when 9-11 strikes, Isha becomes fearful of phone use and increasingly isolated. In Sultan's palatial Red Sea villa, Isha realizes she is evermore on her own with their three young children. Sultan constantly travels abroad with Dr. Abdullah, his long-time colleague and domestic companion. All Isha's human contact shifts to the internet where she befriends Al-Arabi, a marginally employed academic in Berlin with questionable political leanings. On a family vacation Al-Arabi secretly takes Isha off for an afternoon tour privately exploring historic sites in Cairo. When Isha returns, Sultan and all three children are gone. Left stranded and alone, Isha frantically searches for legal help in limbo and self-imposed exile. Facing an international custody dispute, and fearing adultery charges back home in Jeddah, Isha travels to London in hopes of reuniting with her children.After a traumatic encounter with the surveillance apparatus in London, Isha soon flees back to Cairo to find refuge with a middle-aged American confirmed bachelor she nicknames Khawaja. They become very close, empowering Isha to finally claim her children's rights as American citizens. But with the eruption of the Arab Spring, Isha again finds herself pregnant and hiding in Khawaja's isolated Cairo penthouse, watching the enflamed streets below as the post-Ottoman cities across the region fall to the Islamic State in what seems like the end of the world.Literary allusions, themes, and motifs are richly interwoven throughout Layla Hariry’s Tale of a Modern Nights of Arabian Terror. This debut novel artfully synthesizes and explores religious, political, economic, historical, cultural questions of sexuality, gender roles and identity through a deeply personal, compelling, imaginative, erotic, and uniquely satisfying dystopic narrative. TALE OF A MODERN CONCUBINE: NIGHTS OF ARABIAN TERROR