Cairo Books

On the 14th of February 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini sent Salman Rushdie a not so funny Valentine: a fatwa. The Iranian supreme leader found Rushdie’s portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad in his book The Satanic Verses offensive and thought it fair to declare the author an outlaw, inviting all Muslims to kill him in the honour of Islam. “You just need to lie low for a couple of days and let the politicians sort it out”, says one of the police officers that is sent by the British government to protect Rushdie on the first day of the fatwa. ‘A couple of days’ eventually turned into ten years of full police protection, being unable to set foot outside his house without meticulous safety procedures and constantly fearing not only for his own life, but also the well-being of his closest relatives. Joseph Anton was Rushdie’s pseudonym when he went into hiding, so it makes for a good title for a memoir detailing that particular part of his life. So one would assume the book details mostly that: the fatwa, its consequences and the efforts undertaken to void it. Unfortunately, there is a lot of toffee-nosed non-information one has to wade through to get to the interesting stuff. The prologue to the book is written in the first-person, while the rest of the book is in third-person . It comes across as very pretentious to write about himself in the third person; like using the majestic plural. It also creates an unnecessary distance; nothing is more personal then writing one’s memoir. Rushdie spends much of the first chapter debating the validity of the Quran. He was raised to believe that the holy book “was to be regarded as a human artefact, prey to human fallibility and imperfection.” He recalls how his father was fascinated by Islam and often discussed the subject with friends. It is strongly implied that this is where his critical take on religion comes from. The second chapter revolves around the conception, writing and publishing of The Satanic Verses, and how the controversy surrounding the novel initially came about. ‘Good story’ Rushdie thought, as he researched the tale of the satanic verses for a course he was doing to complete his degree at King’s College, Cambridge. Twenty years later he would find out just how ‘good’ of a story it was. This partial memoir would have been an excellent opportunity for Rushdie to showcase his thoughts on freedom of speech, to write a solid piece defending the arts from religious fanatics and narrow minds that lack imagination. But instead, Rushdie has written a 656-page tome detailing how great of a guy ‘Joseph Anton’ is (despite cheating on his wife – whoops!), how fantastic his life has been, notwithstanding the debilitating consequences of the fatwa,  and how he constantly mingles with the rich and famous. It’s nauseating and grotesque, bordering on megalomania. The book is littered with numerous unnecessary references to several of his ‘beloved’, ‘amazing’ and ‘great’ friends such as Harold Pinter, Susan Sontag and Martin Amis. A good two pages are wasted detailing a dinner party at the home of then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. It would be more interesting to know how the fatwa was annulled (spoiler alert: it never actually officially was), not how Rushdie’s son Milan spent at least half an hour sitting on Tony Blair’s lap and how jolly a time was had by all. When reflecting om a memoir of an author that has survived a ten year fatwa by one of the most influential Ayatollahs, we want to know the ins and outs of that particular story. It doesn’t need window-dressing with uninteresting details of the author’s private life, such as the questionable mental state of his former wife and his problems conceiving a child with his third wife. Anyone who thinks highly of Rushdie better leave this book on the shelves of the bookshop, for fear of instant nausea and general disliking of its author.

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Habibi by Craig Thompson is a graphic novel that follows main characters, Dodola and Zam – two escaped child slaves – through a whirlwind of events that are all frightening, enduring and ultimately life-shaping. The 672-page novel may look overwhelming from the outside, but in fact, the read is quick and can easily be finished in a few hours. The premise of the book is based on a nine-squared grid holding nine different letters, which in some way represent all of life – or at least all that matters in life. Every chapter refers to one of those letters, linking different stories that relate to it. For example, beginning with the letter ‘B’ in Arabic – which stands for ‘Bismillah’ – the story of Zam and his newfound caretaker, Dodola, begins and the story is constantly referring back to this word.The structure of the book is difficult to map out. While the story is chronological in the bigger sense, events tend to jump back and forth, where each child slave’s full story is only revealed the further you read. We do not know exactly how either of them came to be until to the end. Other distractions from the story line are religious references. Using Biblical references, verses from the Quran and the history of Moses and Adam, Thompson uses mythical tales to reflect on the characters at hand and the trials they face. He even has a character and element that bears an uncanny representation of Noah and his arc. Apart from his use of history and religious fables, Thompson also tells a very aggressive, and often times, dark story.  Dodola is married off as a child and upon turning to prostitution is subjected to rape and mistreatment. Zam is a slave who sacrifices his manhood out of a loss of a better life. They are both abused time and time again and having their misfortunes sketched out for the eye to witness adds a shocking element to the novel.This brings us to what makes the novel so wonderful at the same time; the illustrations. The detailing of the sketches and the exemplary hand-work at play is extremely commendable. Action scenes have your eyes rushing through the pages as frantically as one seen on a TV screen. The beauty in the details is endless; the graphics are looming and grand but also sensual and precise. There is a lot of calligraphy incorporated, which makes for an interesting experience for those who can read Arabic. Another interesting aspect is his combination of the new and the old. Though the story takes place in today’s world, a lot of the prevalent ideologies are from nomadic times; primitive and beastly. There is also some humour to be found in Habibi. When Dodola tells the version of the Noah’s Ark story in which he leaves his wife behind, we are given an image of Noah sitting  on his bed with a thought bubble filled with his grumblings: ‘Who needs her? ... Bitch... Battle-axe ... Ball and chain’. Thompson not only takes these moments to humanise past prophets, but he also gives them a contemporary voice. There is also a powerful underlying sarcasm throughout.There is indeed something quite poetic about the story he tells – and the manner in which it is told – regardless of the gruesome, harsh aspects; on the contrary, it is these parts that make the novel that much more meaningful.

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What goes on in the mind of somebody who was wrongfully put on death row at the tender age of eighteen? Damien Echols is unfortunate enough to know. In 1994 he was sentenced to death for three murders he didn’t commit. During the eighteen years he spent on death row, he kept diaries and those form the basis of his new autobiography Life After Death. In it, he presents reflections on prison life sandwiched in between memories of his childhood and the trial that would change his life forever.Echols grew up as typical ‘white trash’ – a term he uses to describe himself throughout the book – in a trailer park in a small town in Arkansas. Poor as a church mouse and with a minor criminal record for vandalism and shoplifting, he always wore a black trench coat and sported an alternative hairdo. There were rumours going around town he was into satanic rituals. When three boys were found dead in the woods, he was an easy scapegoat for the Arkansas police force. His friend Jason Baldwin and another kid who lived in their neighbourhood, Jessie Miskelley, ended up as collateral damage for hanging out with Echols at the wrong place and time and were sent to prison for life. After a prizewinning documentary about the boys’ case – now dubbed as the West Memphis Three, or WM3 – attracted a lot of attention. An alternative defence team was put together that would eventually free the three men, but only after having spent over half of their lives in prison. Life After Death reads as an exercise in humility, willpower and anger management. It is a haunting memoir of a young man that has been wrongfully locked up for the better part of his life, and yet he somehow manages to not be wholly consumed by anger. He doesn't even appear to hold grudges against the people that destroyed his life. “I will not give in to anger”, he writes. “If I do, then they have won.”Raised a Christian, Echols goes on a spiritual quest to give meaning and structure to his life behind bars. He describes his days as “a dark and distorted version of monastic life”, spending hours meditating and reciting bible verses.Having experienced it from the inside, Echols is very critical of both the American judiciary and its prison system. He describes the conditions in US prisons as a mix of “sadness, horror and sheer absurdity.” Echols concluded that “jail is preschool” and that “prison is for those earning a Ph.D. in brutality”. Many of his fellow inmates go mad. He remembers a fellow prisoner that Scotch taped crickets to his body, calling them his ‘babies’. Another death row convict was so far beyond sanity that he couldn’t be made to understand that finishing his dessert after his execution was not an option.The West Memphis Three were eventually acquitted on Alford pleas, which allow them to assert their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict them. In his book, Echols understandably seizes every opportunity to proclaim his innocence. Every time this prison sentence comes up it is followed by his assertion: “For a crime I did not commit,” as if to nullify the court decision. Now, as true as that might be, it does get tiring to read.One good thing to come out of this whole experience, Echols recognises, is that he became an autodidact in jail. He was a high school drop-out when he came to prison, but managed to cultivate his intelligence and vastly expand his knowledge by reading thousands of books on a wide variety of subjects during his time there. This certainly shows in this book; fluently written, it is witty, well thought out and filled with interesting facts and sensible arguments. Echols’ writing talent is evident and hopefully he will employ this skill in future books.

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It's difficult to stay loyal to a particular genre of novels for a long time. Taking a look at mystery and thriller novels would be a good case in point. Most novels follow the same pattern. Someone dies, the detective does the work and long before the novel ends you get a pretty clear picture of who the murderer might be. The Drop doesn't stray from the widely-accepted formula of such novels. Harry Bosch is a detective who works in the Open-Unsolved Unit, returning to cold cases that were never figured out. He looks into new evidence with a fresh perspective hoping to avenge the death of victims whose killers were thought to have gone free.  New DNA evidence from a 1989 murder case of a young woman ties Clayton Pell, a modern-day child molester who just got out of jail, to the killing. The only problem is that Pell was only eight at the time of the crime. While Detective Bosch has his hands full trying to track the real murderer, Irvin Irving, a city councilman, asks for Detective Bosch by name. Irving's son, George, is believed to have jumped off a hotel balcony and Irving refuses to believe his son would commit suicide and wants Bosch to look into the matter. Here's the problem with The Drop; it doesn't offer anything beyond the surface. The identities of the crime perpetrators are revealed early on in the novel and can be easily guessed from the start, while the rest of the novel merely attempts to prove that they were the ones who did it. Lacking the element of surprise, The Drop is a safe read. It's not a novel you will take to bed every night; the kind of novel that takes two to three days to get through a single chapter. The two murders are completely unrelated and putting them together in the same plot feels forced. Detective Bosch has a lot going on in his personal front as well; his fifteen-year-old daughter who is way too mature for her age and wants to grow up to be a police officer is his main support system at home, and a budding romance between Bosch and a social worker adds a tinge of romance to Bosch's life. And while The Drop lacks any shocking events, Michael Connelly has done a good job describing the gory details of the murders. Connelly successfully manages to provide insightful glimpses into the psyches of the depraved, and while such insights might not gain your sympathy, they help you understand the motives behind the actions. The novel is left open-ended, in a way that allows the characters to seem more real as if their lives will continue beyond the pages of the novel. The Drop is not a remarkable novel and is likely to be forgotten once finished, but Harry Bosch's fans might not want to give it a miss.

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It happens more often than not; you start a book and halfway through you feel the storyline is going nowhere. But you finish it anyway hoping that things will take a turn for the better. Big Girl is one of those books, and as the novel progresses, things only manage to take a turn for the worse. Big Girl tells the story of Victoria Dawson; the black sheep in her family. Victoria is the chubby older sister who, by her family's standards, is a loser. She lives her entire life putting up with her father's biting sarcastic comments about her weight and the fact that, unlike her younger sister, she has consistently failed to snatch herself a man. And while Victoria had wanted a career in teaching, her father wanted a more prestigious job for her. Always belittling her academic achievements, Victoria grows up with some serious self-esteem issues. Every time Victoria receives a confidence boost, it's often related to the presence of a man in her life. She makes it a lifetime habit of seeking solace in ice cream and double portions every time a boyfriend dumps her.  The defining moment of her life is a nose job. While we understand that many people resort to plastic surgery to boost their self-esteem, Big Girl should have condemned the emphasis society puts on body image. Victoria is a successful high school teacher and is admired by her students, yet somehow, she only manages to feel better about herself after fixing her nose. Other characters include Grace; Victoria's younger sister and her only ally at home. Throughout the entire novel, it seemsthat she was the only one who could see sense in the family. However, when she decides to get hitched to a narcissistic wealthy guy who cheats on her, she doesn't seem so full of sense after all. The rest of the characters are two-dimensional and fail to sound convincing. For a novel that was supposed to tackle a serious problem faced by a lot of women, the fairytale-like ending simply didn't cut it. Victoria is the novel's main character, and if she was supposed to invoke the reader's sympathy, she only managed to invoke this reader's fury. Literature, media and film has been a platform for criticising unnecessary body image obsession, but Big Girl ranks at the bottom of that list. It does nothing to empower ‘big girls’; the message it sends can be summed up as follows: if your parents have been verbally abusing you your entire life, there is nothing that can make you feel better about yourself except for finding a man.  Big Girl is a disappointing novel by a long-standing author. The novel is redundant and gives the impression that Steel has run out of ideas.  And although Steel has been trying to tackle a serious issue, the outcome is anything but serious.

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