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Summary
Summary
Zoë Ferraris's electrifying debut of taut psychological suspense offers an unprecedented window into Saudi Arabia and the lives of men and women there. When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing, along with a truck and her favorite camel, her prominent family calls on Nayir al-Sharqi, a desert guide, to lead a search party. Ten days later, just as Nayir is about to give up in frustration, her body is discovered by anonymous desert travelers. But when the coroner's office determines that Nouf died not of dehydration but from drowning, and her family seems suspiciously uninterested in getting at the truth, Nayir takes it upon himself to find out what really happened to her.
This mission will push gentle, hulking, pious Nayir, a Palestinian orphan raised by his bachelor uncle, to delve into the secret life of a rich, protected teenage girl--in one of the most rigidly gender-segregated of Middle Eastern societies. Initially horrified at the idea of a woman bold enough to bare her face and to work in public, Nayir soon realizes that if he wants to gain access to the hidden world of women, he will have to join forces with Katya Hijazi, a lab worker at the coroner's office. Their partnership challenges Nayir, bringing him face to face with his desire for female companionship and the limitations imposed by his beliefs. It also ultimately leads them both to surprising revelations. Fast-paced and utterly transporting, Finding Nouf offers an intimate glimpse inside a closed society and a riveting literary mystery.
Author Notes
ZOE FERRARIS was born in Oklahoma. She moved to Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the first gulf war to live with her then husband and his extended family of Saudi-Palestinian Bedouins, who had never welcomed an American into their lives before. She has an MFA from Columbia University and lives in San Francisco.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A finely detailed literary mystery set in contemporary Saudi Arabia, Ferraris's debut centers on Nouf ash-Shrawi, a 16-year-old girl who disappeared into the desert three days before her marriage and has been found dead, several weeks pregnant. Palestinian Nayir al-Sharqi who lives in Jeddah and works occasionally for the rich Shrawi family, is asked by them to investigate Nouf's death discreetly. Nayir, a conservative Muslim and an outsider because of his nationality, his class and his large stature, is wary of traversing the wide gulf between Saudi men's and women's worlds, and is encouraged by his friend Othman, an adopted son of the Shrawis, to seek out the help of Katya Hijazi, Othman's fiance. Katya has a Ph.D. and is employed in the women's section of the state medical examiner's office. As Nayir and Katya's investigation progresses, it becomes clear that at least one of the Shrawis has something to hide. Ferraris, who has lived in Saudi Arabia, gets deep inside Nayir's and Katya's very different perspectives, giving a fascinating glimpse into the workings and assumptions of Saudi society. As a mystery, it's fairly well-turned, but it's the characters and setting that sparkle. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Shifting desert sands and shifting attitudes reveal the complexities--and hypocrisy--of Saudi life. Nouf ash-Shrawi, the 16-year-old daughter of a wealthy Saudi family, has disappeared shortly before her much-anticipated marriage. Her brother Othman hires desert guide and tracker Nayir al-Sharqi to find her. Palestinian by birth, Nayir embraces the Bedouin culture that most Saudis claim as their birthright but have abandoned for a materialistic urban lifestyle. From the Bedouin he has learned to read the desert sands for information about landmarks, changes in the weather and prey. He also hides behind rigid Islamic beliefs that emphasize how women lead men to sin. What he learns about Nouf and the other privileged Shrawi women contrasts with his view of the ideal woman as humble, modest and devout. After Nouf is found dead in the desert, Nayir meets medical examiner Katya Hijazi, who is engaged to marry Nouf's brother. Nayir interprets Katya's professional confidence as brazen, even sinful, but they are drawn together by the belief that Nouf's official cause of death hides the truth (also hidden is the fact that she was pregnant). Nayir and Katya eventually uncover the oppression and suppressed desires that fester behind the Shrawi family's elegant fa‡ade. Gradually, Nayir recognizes that an insightful, intelligent woman like Katya can be worthy of his admiration. Ferraris peppers her well-paced text with telling details about Islamic practices. At Nouf's burial, for example, the body is positioned in such a way so that the fetus, not the mother, faces Mecca. A finely nuanced first novel offering an exceptionally balanced look at male and female perspectives. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Fictional detectives are a diverse bunch, but surely debut novelist Ferraris, an American who married into a Saudi family, has created the first devoutly Muslim sleuth living in a contemporary Islamic state. Nayir, desert guide to Jeddah's elite, agrees to play PI when the teen daughter of his wealthiest client turns up dead in a wadi. As Nayir's discoveries illuminate the lives of his country's sequestered women, his worldview is further stretched by Katya, a forensics technician connected to the victim's family. Her voice alternates with Nayir's as they defy legal and spiritual precepts to cooperate on the case. Though competently constructed, the mystery falters during suspect interrogations that seem too professional to square with Nayir's amateur role. It's his bumbling, vulnerable side that will stick with readers, as will the story's memorable cultural set pieces, especially the incongruous coat bazaar, where suitors buy parkas for brides dreaming of world travel. Lure readers with mentions of CSI and, say, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003), but this is better than such glib genre mash-ups tend to suggest.--Mattson, Jennifer Copyright 2008 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Drawing on the years she spent with her former husband's Saudi-Palestinian Bedouin family, Ferraris offers a first novel about a Saudi desert guide puzzling over a teenaged girl's death. With a six-city tour; rights sold to 13 countries. (LJ 2/1/08) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.