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In a blazing hot desert in Saudia Arabia, a search party is dispatched to find a missing young woman. Thus begins a novel that offers rare insight into the inner workings of a country in which women must wear the abaya in public or risk denunciation by the religious police; where ancient beliefs, taboos, and customs frequently clash with a fast-moving, technology-driven modern world.
The missing woman is Nouf Shrawi, one of several sheltered teenaged daughters of a powerful local family. Hired to track her and her potential abductor is Nayir, a solitary, pious desert guide of dubious origin, and a friend of the family. As Nayir uncovers clues that only serve to deepen the mystery behind Nouf's disappearance, he teams up with Katya, a liberated Saudi woman who is engaged to one of Nouf's brothers.
As they move closer to the truth, the pair's detective work unveils layers of secrets. In a land of prayers, purity, and patriarchy, the dreams of mere mortals often go unrealized, and the consequences of misbehavior for both men and women are disastrous. The final revelation of the truth forces Nayir to confront his own attitudes about women and society and in his deepening relationship with Katya, to face up to his own long-denied yearnings for love and intimacy.
(Fall 2008 Selection)
Finding Nouf
Narrated by Pete Bradbury
Zoë FerrarisUnabridged — 11 hours, 13 minutes
Finding Nouf
Narrated by Pete Bradbury
Zoë FerrarisUnabridged — 11 hours, 13 minutes
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Overview
Editorial Reviews
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 fiancée. 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)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationSixteen-year-old Nouf ash-Shrawi, daughter of a wealthy Saudi Arabian family, mysteriously disappears and is eventually found drowned in the desert. Was she kidnapped, or did she run away-and if the latter, why? Nouf's brother, Othman, asks his friend Nayir Sharqi, a local desert guide, to find out what happened to his sister. Nayir's investigation leads him into unknown territory-notably, the secret realm of women in a segregated Middle Eastern society. In an unusual partnership that challenges his traditional ideas, Nayir works on the case with Othman's fiancée, a laboratory technician in the medical examiner's office. Ferraris's debut novel gives a fascinating peek into the lives and minds of devout Muslim men and women while serving up an engrossing mystery. Ferraris, an American, lived in Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s with her then-husband and his extended family, Saudi-Palestinian Bedouins. Highly recommended.-Sarah Conrad Weisman, Corning Community Coll. Lib., NY
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.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 facade. 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. Agent: Julie Barer/BarerLiterary
Finding Nouf is an astounding feat of storytelling, a gripping novel that also explores with unsparing, sympathetic insight how the men and women of Saudi Arabia’s new generation struggle with their modernizing yet still traditional society. —Azadeh Moaveni, author of Lipstick Jihad
Finding Nouf is my favorite kind of mystery: an unlikely detective guiding us through an unfamiliar world. Ferraris uses the genre smartly, setting an unsolved murder in a society that is complex, veiled, and itself full of mystery and intrigue.
—David Ebershoff, author of The 19th Wife
Zoë Ferraris’s novel lifts the veil on the repressed personal lives of Saudi Arabia’s rich, giving us unparalleled insight into daily life in an oft-caricatured culture—and a great mystery. Her detective, Nayir al-Sharqi, is a sharp desert guide, and one might say that in her writing Ferraris follows a similar profession. —Matt Beynon Rees, author of The Collaborator of Bethlehem
The mystery that preoccupies Finding Nouf keeps you turning its pages, while its characters linger with you long after you’ve finished. Katya and Nayir’s unconventional partnership argues for the virtues of reconciliation even as it throws off sparks. Finding Nouf is a compelling and deeply humane book.—Anita Amirrezvani, author of The Blood of Flowers
Finding Nouf combines the ancient mysteries of the desert with sleek literary prose. This deeply original work is entrancing, stylish, and utterly compelling. —Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Crescent
Ferraris offers up a fascinating peek into the lives and minds of devout Muslim men and women while serving up an engrossing mystery ... Highly recommended.
Library Journal
A finely nuanced first novel offering an exceptionally balanced look at male and female perspectives.
Kirkus Reviews
With her debut novel, Zoe Ferraris makes a wonderful contribution to the burgeoning genre of ethnographic literary crime fiction. — Financial Times
"Ferraris writes with authority on how Saudi insiders and outsiders alike perceive the United States ... With equal authority, she stakes her own claim on the world map, opening Saudi Arabia up for mystery fans to reveal the true minds and hearts of its denizens." Los Angeles Times
"The author's canny move using the tried-and-true murder mystery format allows her to sketch a trenchant portrait of Saudi society within an engaging yarn." Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"Finding Nouf, Zoe Ferraris's engrossing debut novel, yanks the veil off Saudi Arabian culture while unraveling a compelling murder mystery." The Oregonian
What truly sets this book apart from a detective novel is its prose.
The San Francisco Chronicle
Offers a fascinating glimpse inside domestic Saudi Arabia...a page-turning thriller..."Finding Nouf" turns out to be a great beach read. Cleveland Plain Dealer —
"Ferraris writes with authority on how Saudi insiders and outsiders alike perceive the United States ... With equal authority, she stakes her own claim on the world map, opening Saudi Arabia up for mystery fans to reveal the true minds and hearts of its denizens."
"Reads like a breeze ... Ferraris offers a fascinating glimpse inside domestic Saudi Arabia. Even better, she has written a fascinating thriller, not only an academic treatment. Finding Nouf turns out to be a great beach read."
"A finely tuned character study ... both particularly well-crafted and readily accessible for American readers. Just make sure you turn up the air-conditioning before sitting down to read."
"The author's canny move using the tried-and-true murder mystery format allows her to sketch a trenchant portrait of Saudi society within an engaging yarn."
"Finding Nouf, Zoe Ferraris's engrossing debut novel, yanks the veil off Saudi Arabian culture while unraveling a compelling murder mystery."
"What's remarkable about this debut is that its mystery takes place within a culture that is largely under wraps ... The thriller plot is well-placed. But it's the individual journeys of Nayir and Katya, who abide by society's strictures even as they are frustrated by them, that elevate Finding Nouf to a larger human drama."
"[Ferraris] weaves a richly detailed tapestry of the country's gender-segregated and pious Muslim culture."
"In Finding Nouf, first-time novelist [Zoe Ferraris] gives us an imaginative and closely observed murder mystery set in the Saudi port town of Jeddah, a literary detective novel that balances the pleasures of plot with finely milled prose ... As a good detective novel should, Finding Nouf visits all the nooks and crannies of society ... Characters a lesser writer would skim over with a few generic adjectives come alive in Ferraris's hands and pull you into their world. But what truly sets this book apart from a detective novel is its prose."
"In Finding Nouf, first-time novelist [Zoe Ferraris] gives us an imaginative and closely observed murder mystery set in the Saudi port town of Jeddah, a literary detective novel that balances the pleasures of plot with finely milled prose ... As a good detective novel should, Finding Nouf visits all the nooks and crannies of society ... Characters a lesser writer would skim over with a few generic adjectives come alive in Ferraris's hands and pull you into their world. But what truly sets this book apart from a detective novel is its prose."
"[Ferraris] weaves a richly detailed tapestry of the country's gender-segregated and pious Muslim culture."
The story of a 16-year-old young woman's inexplicable death by drowning in the middle of the desert just before her wedding is told from the point of view of a conscientious but conservative male friend of the family. Pete Bradbury's solemn, rich baritone evokes the striking landscape and culture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The novel explores a young woman’s acculturation into the hierarchy of a wealthy family as the question at the heart of the story—what really happened to Nouf—pulls the listener into this complicated murder mystery. Bradbury shifts between the male narrator and a supporting female character who aids in a secret investigation even after the family of the late young woman has accepted her death as an accident. M.R. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171054212 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
| Publication date: | 01/09/2009 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Before the sun set that evening, Nayir filled his canteen, tucked a prayer rug beneath his arm, and climbed the south-facing dune near the camp. Behind him came a burst of loud laughter from one of the tents, and he imagined that his men were playing cards, probably tarneeb, and passing the siddiqi around. Years of traveling in the desert had taught him that it was impossible to stop people from doing whatever they liked. There was no law out here, and if the men wanted alcohol, they would drink. It disgusted Nayir that they would wake up on Friday morning, the holy day, their bodies putrefied with gin. But he said nothing. After ten days of fruitless searching, he was not in the mood to chastise.
He scaled the dune at an easy pace, stopping only once he'd reached the crest. From here he had a sprawling view of the desert valley, crisp and flat, surrounded by low dunes that undulated in the golden color of sunset. But his eye was drawn to the blot on the landscape: half a dozen vultures hunched over a jackal's carcass. It was the reason they'd stopped here - another false lead.
Two days ago they'd given up scouring the desert and started following the vultures instead, but every flock of vultures only brought the sight of a dead jackal or gazelle. It was a relief, of course, but a disappointment too. He still held out hope that they would find her.
Taking his compass from his pocket, he found the direction of Mecca and pointed his prayer rug there. He opened his canteen and took a precautionary sniff . The water smelled tinny. He took a swig, then quickly knelt on the sand to perform his ablutions. He scrubbed his arms, neck, and hands, and when he was finished screwed the canteen tightly shut, relishing the brief coolness of water on his skin.
Standing above the rug, he began to pray, but his thoughts continually turned to Nouf. For the sake of modesty, he tried not to imagine her face or her body, but the more he thought about her, the more vivid she became. In his mind she was walking through the desert, leaning into the wind, black cloak whipping against her sunburned ankles. Allah forgive me for imagining her ankles, he thought. And then: At least I think she's still alive.
When he wasn't praying, he imagined other things about her. He saw her kneeling and shoveling sand into her mouth, mistaking it for water. He saw her sprawled on her back, the metal of a cell phone burning a brand onto her palm. He saw the jackals tearing her body to pieces. During prayers he tried to reverse these fears and imagine her still struggling. Tonight his mind fought harder than ever to give life to what felt like a hopeless case.
Prayers finished, he felt more tired than before. He rolled up the rug and sat on the sand at the very edge of the hill, looking out at the dunes that surrounded the valley. The wind picked up and stroked the desert floor, begging a few grains of sand to flaunt its elegance, while the earth shed its skin with a ripple and seemed to take flight. The bodies of the dunes changed endlessly with the winds. They rose into peaks or slithered like snake trails. The Bedouin had taught him how to interpret the shapes to determine the chance of a sandstorm or the direction of tomorrow's wind. Some Bedouin believed that the forms held prophetic meanings too. Right now the land directly ahead of him formed a series of crescents, graceful half-moons that rolled toward the horizon. Crescents meant change was in the air.
His thoughts turned to the picture in his pocket. Checking to see that no one was coming up the hill behind him, he took the picture out and allowed himself the rare indulgence of studying a woman's face.
Nouf ash-Shrawi stood in the center of the frame, smiling happily as she cut a slice of cake at her younger sister's birthday party. She had a long nose, black eyes, and a gorgeous smile; it was hard to imagine that just four weeks after the picture was taken she had run away - to the desert, no less -leaving everything behind: a fiancé, a luxurious life, and a large, happy family. She'd even left the five-year-old sister who stood beside her in the picture, looking up at her with heartbreaking adoration. Why? he wondered. Nouf was only sixteen. She had a whole life in front of her.
And where did she go?
When Othman had phoned and told him about his sister's disappearance, he had sounded weaker than Nayir had ever heard him. "I'd give my blood," he stammered, "if that would help find her." In the long silence that followed, Nayir knew he was crying; he'd heard the choke in his voice. Othman had never asked for anything before. Nayir said he would assist.
For many years he had taken the Shrawi men to the desert. In fact, he'd taken dozens of families just like the Shrawis, and they were all the same: rich and pompous, desperate to prove that they hadn't lost their Bedouin birthright even though for most of them the country's dark wells of petroleum would always be more compelling than its topside. But Othman was different. He was one of the few men who loved the desert as much as Nayir and who had the brains to enjoy his adventures. He didn't mount a camel until someone told him how to get off . He didn't get sunburn. He didn't get lost. Drawn together by a mutual love of the desert, he and Nayir had fallen into an easy friendship that had deepened over the years.
On the telephone Othman was so distraught that the story came out in confusing fragments. His sister was gone. She had run away. Maybe she'd been kidnapped. Because of their wealth, it was possible that someone wanted ransom money - but kidnappings were rare, and there was no ransom note yet. Only a day had passed, but it seemed long enough. Nayir had to pry to get the facts. No one knew exactly when she had left; they only noticed she was missing in the late afternoon. She had last been seen in the morning, when she told her mother she was going to the mall to exchange a pair of shoes. But by evening the family had discovered that other things were gone too: a pickup truck, the new black cloak she was saving for the honeymoon. When they realized that a camel was missing from the stables, they decided she'd run away to the desert.
Her disappearance had taken everyone by surprise. "She was happy," Othman said. "She was about to get married."
"Maybe she got nervous?" Nayir asked gently.
"No, she wanted this marriage."
If there was more to the story, Othman wasn't saying.
Nayir spent the next day making preparations. He refused the lavish payment the family offered, taking only what he needed. He hired fifty-two camels, contacted every desert man he knew, and even called the Ministry of the Interior's Special Services to see if they could track her by military satellite, but their overhead optics were reserved for other things. Still, he managed to compose a search-and-rescue team involving several dozen men and a unit of part-time Bedouin who wouldn't even look at Nouf's picture, claiming that they didn't need to, that there was only one type of woman for whom being stranded in the largest desert in the world was a kind of improvement on her daily life. The men developed a theory that Nouf had eloped with an American lover to escape her arranged marriage. It was hard to say why they all believed the idea. There had been a few cases of rich Saudi girls falling for American men, and they were shocking enough to linger in the collective memory. But it wasn't as frequent as people supposed, and as far as Nayir knew, no Saudi girl had ever eloped to the desert.
The Shrawis asked Nayir to focus his search on one area of the desert, with radii extending outward from As Sulayyil. They stationed other search parties to the north and northwest, and one to the southwest. He would have liked more liberty to expand his operations at his own discretion, but as it was, he was hemmed in by strangers who seldom bothered to communicate with him. So he ignored the rules. Two days into it, he ordered his men to follow their instincts even if it took them into neighboring territory. If Nouf was still out there, her chances of survival decreased with every hour of daylight. This was no time to be formal, as if the search were a wedding dinner and the guests should be seated on their cushions just so.
Besides, his team was the largest, and although he didn't often do search-and-rescue, he knew the desert better than most. He'd practically grown up in the desert. His uncle Samir had raised him, and Samir kept foreign friends: scholars, scientists, men who came to study the Red Sea, the birds and the fish, or the Bedouin way of life. Nayir spent summers chipping dirt on archaeological digs for rich Europeans who sought the tomb of Abraham or the remains of the gold that the Jews had carried from Egypt. He spent winters clutching the rear humps of camels, clattering through the sand with tin pots and canteens. He became an archer, a falconer, a survivalist of sorts who could find his way home from remote locations needing only a headscarf, water, and the sky. He wasn't a Bedouin by blood, but he felt like one.
He'd never failed to find a lost traveler. If Nouf had run away, he had to assume that she didn't want to be found. For ten days they scoured the dunes in Rovers, on camels, from airplanes and choppers, and frequently they found each other, which caused some relief, hard as it was to find anything living in all of that sand. But they did not find Nouf, and finally the reports that Nayir's men placed before him began to suggest alternative theories in which she'd taken an overnight bus to Muscat or boarded an airplane for Amman.
He cursed the situation. Maybe she'd spent a night in the wild and decided it was too uncomfortable, too dirty, and she'd moved on. Yet Nayir feared that she had stayed, and now it was too late. It only took two days for a man to die in the desert. For a young girl from a wealthy family, a girl who had probably never left the comfort of an air-conditioned room, it would take less time than that.
The sunset showered the landscape in a warm orange light, and a stiff sirocco troubled the air. It stirred a sharp longing that reached beyond his concerns for Nouf. Lately he'd been overcome by thoughts of what was missing in his life. Irrationally, he felt that it wasn't only Nouf he'd lost, it was the possibility of finding any woman. Closing his eyes, he asked Allah once again:
What is Your plan for me? I trust in Your plan, but I'm impatient. Please reveal Your design.
Behind him came a shout. Quickly stuffing the picture back in his pocket, he stood up and saw one of his men at the bottom of the hill, pointing at a pair of headlights in the distance. Nayir grabbed his rug and canteen and scrambled down the dune. Someone was coming, and a desperate foreboding told him that it was bad news. He jogged along the bottom of the dune and waited as the Rover drove into camp. It stopped beside the largest tent.
Nayir didn't recognize the young man at the wheel. He looked like a Bedouin with his sharp features and dark skin. He was wearing a leather bomber jacket over his dusty white robe, and when he stepped out of the car, he regarded Nayir with apprehension.
Nayir welcomed the guest and extended his hand. He knew he was too big and imposing to put anyone at ease, but he tried. Nervously, the boy introduced himself as Ibrahim Suleiman, a son of one of the Shrawi servants. The men gathered around, waiting for the news, but Ibrahim stood quietly, and Nayir realized that he wanted to speak in private.
He led the boy into the tent, praying that the men hadn't been drinking after all. There was no worse way to disgrace oneself than to lead a man into a tent that smelled like alcohol. But the tent doors were open and the wind blew in, along with a generous spray of sand.
Inside, Nayir lit a lamp, off ered his guest a floor cushion, and began preparing tea. He refrained from asking questions, but he hurried through the tea because he was eager to hear the news. Once it was ready, Nayir sat cross-legged beside his guest and waited for him to drink first.
Once the second cup had been poured, Ibrahim leaned forward and balanced his teacup on his knee. "They found her," he said, his eyes lowered. "They did?" The tension drained out of Nayir so suddenly that it hurt. "Where?"
"About two kilometers south of the Shrawi campsite. She was in a wadi."
"They've had men there for a week. Are they certain it's her?"
"Yes."
"Who found her?" "We're not sure. Someone who wasn't working for the family. Travelers."
"How do you know this?"
"Tahsin's cousin Majid came to our camp and delivered the news. He'd spoken to the coroner." Ibrahim took another sip of his tea. "He said that the travelers took her back to Jeddah. She was already dead."
"Dead?"
"Yes." Ibrahim sat back. "The travelers took her to the coroner's office in Jeddah. They had no idea who she was." It was over. He thought about his men outside, wondered if they would feel relief or disappointment. Probably relief. He wasn't sure what to tell them about the girl. It was odd that the family's own search party had been stationed near the wadi. A group of cousins and servants must have been right on top of her, yet they had missed her completely. They had also missed whoever had been traveling through the area. The travelers must have returned her body to the city before the Shrawis had even figured out that they'd passed through. All of this made Nayir uneasy, but he would have to double-check the information; it wasn't exactly reliable.
"How did the family find out about it?" he asked.
"Someone at the coroner's office knows the family and called them to break the news."
Nayir nodded, still feeling numb. The teapot was empty. Slowly he stood and went to the stove. He poured more water into the pot and lit the match for the stove with a clumsy twitch, burning the tip of his thumb. The sharpness of the pain lit a spark inside him, a quick, fierce anger. The urge to find her was still strong. Forgive me for my pride, he thought. I should think about the family now. But he couldn't.
He went back and sat down. "Do you know how she died?"
"No." There was a sad acceptance in the boy's eyes. "Heat stroke, I imagine."
"It's a terrible way to die," Nayir said. "I can't help thinking there's something we could have done."
"I doubt it."
"Why?" Nayir asked. "What do you think happened to her?"
The Bedouin looked him straight in the eye. "Same thing that happens to any girl, I think."
"And what's that?" Nayir asked. Love? Sex? What do you know about it? Ibrahim's face told him that it had been wrong to ask; the boy was blushing. Nayir wanted to know more, to pry the answers out of him, but he knew too that if Nouf's death had happened because of love or sex, then any truthful reply would be less proper still. Modestly, he waited for an elaboration, but Ibrahim merely sipped his tea, resolute in his silence.
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