Behind You Is The Sea, by Susan Muaddi Darraj

 

A collection of interwoven stories describes the Palestinian-American experience in humbling detail.

​Susan Muaddi Darraj is a Palestinian-American writer and professor of English Literature. Her novel, Behind You is the Sea, began life as a series of previously published short stories. She has here expanded that into a full length work. The novel follows the interconnected fortunes of three Palestinian-American families, the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars. One of the main themes is the intergenerational difficulties caused by trying to integrate into American society. Parents cling to the old ways, and are often haunted by traumas from the past, while the younger generation are stuck in between, wholly at home in American society, but trying to honor and understand their parents history and culture. Sometimes this leads to outright conflict, when marriages are disapproved of, or Palestinian-Americans find themselves misrepresented or misunderstood by their fellow citizens. There’s also a strong focus on the experiences of women, who are often asked to conform to unrealistic cultural expectations.

Behind You is the Sea doesn’t work as a plotted story, but rather follows a broad cast, young, old and in between, in a series of connected short stories. While there are many characters to keep up with, the book is easy to follow, with compelling individual storylines. What do we learn? That many families - no matter the religious or cultural background - are basically pretty similar, experiencing the same struggles. We also learn of more particular challenges, for example when a son takes his father back to Palestine to be buried, only to be put through insensitive bureaucratic red tape by the occupying authorities. 

An absorbing look into the struggles and complicated family dynamics of the Palestinian diaspora. 

Behind You Is The Sea, by Susan Muaddi Darraj. Published by Swift Press. $32.99

DEC 24