Sometimes you run out of adjectives. Or the adjectives lose their luster. What if I say that Once in a Promised Land is brilliant, insightful, heartbreaking, enchanting—what does that even mean anymore? But this novel is brilliant because the prose glows, sends off heat. Insightful because it allows us to see into a place that most of us don't know about. Heartbreaking because you can feel the situation that these characters are trapped in. And enchanting because it's told in the form of a fairy tale that lets us believe that, somehow, these poor souls may be able to rescue themselves . . . Laila Halaby has captured the human condition perfectly here. —Carolyn See, Washington Post
"Set in the early days of post-September 11 America, Once in a Promised Land draws its structure from Arabian folklore and the western fairy tale, turning both inside out to illuminate the mythic search for home and identity, the universal hunger of the soul for the genuine, and the wounding yet redemptive nature of love itself. In this timely and utterly original novel, Laila Halaby has crafted a deeply resonant tale of out tangled and common humanity.—Andre Dubus III
"Once in a Promised Land tells a story you won't find anywhere else. It gives the human scale to big events and with great fluency captures the heart and soul of what it's like to be living in America in these troubling times."—Larry Dark, director of The Story Prize
"Once in a Promised Land is an intricate braid of secrets, some intimate, some the brutal and nasty ones abroad these days in a land whose promise and promises have been shattered by suspicion and hostility. Laila Halaby, who still dares to dream of an intact culture, has written a forceful novel that catches innocence and the hope for wholeness in the web of its complex plot and squeezes them until they bleed." —Rosellen Brown, author of Before and After
"Once in a Promised Land uses the novel form to bring to life the roots of prejudice and cultural differences, making it a top pick for readers seeking something with more depth than your usual novel."—Diane C. Donovan, Midwest Book Review
"Laila Halaby is a deeply gifted writer. She describes complicated, culture-spanning lives in a poetic prose that is clean and compelling. There is no glossing over pain here, but the power of telling-richly human voices and the redemption of honesty."—Naomi Shihab Nye on West of the Jordan
"Laila Halaby has created a beautiful, poignant tale about America in a dark time and peopled it with exquisitely crafted characters who wring our hearts."—Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of Queen of Dreams and The Mistress of Spices
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"Terror cannot be smoothed away by rational thinking."
Tucson, Arizona, may be light-years away from Jassim and Salwa's native Jordan, but it isn't far enough to provide the freedom and acceptance for which they'd hoped. Jassim, a hydrologist, works tirelessly to preserve the water table; Salwa, his wife, spends her days in a bank and moonlights selling real estate, trying to stave off her desire for a child. In this new century, however, a national cloud of suspicion and doubt threatens the promise of their life together. First, Jassim is involved in a car accident. Then Salwa seeks solace from an unstable co-worker, and Jassim -- solid citizen and respected professional -- is bullied by the FBI in their hunt for domestic terrorists.
Halaby's second novel displays an extraordinary ability to get deep within her characters, to see the world as they do. Once in a Promised Land is a novel of terrible truths. Wanting what many of us want -- family, a home, and justice -- Jassim and Salwa must
watch as their brave hopes suffer a fateful conflict with the way we live now.
(Spring 2007 Selection)
Sometimes you run out of adjectives. Or the adjectives lose their luster. What if I say that Once in a Promised Land is brilliant, insightful, heartbreaking, enchanting -- what does that even mean anymore? But this novel is brilliant because the prose glows, sends off heat. Insightful because it allows us to see into a place that most of us don't know about. Heartbreaking because you can feel the situation that these characters are trapped in. And enchanting because it's told in the form of a fairy tale that lets us believe that, somehow, these poor souls may be able to rescue themselves.
— The Washington Post
In this trial of post-9/11 America, a Jordanian couple enjoys the spoils of freedom until fate curdles their dreams. Living in Tucson, Ariz., husband Jassim is a hydrologist with an immigrant's-eye view of the States as a place of "stainless steel promises... and possibility." His wife, Salwa, also believes in a country where anything from "a house in the foothills to sex with a co-worker" could be yours. But after the "crazy suicide" that destroys the Twin Towers, their idyllic lives are torpedoed; paranoid bigotry, patriotism run amok and a baseless FBI investigation are only the beginning. Compounding the suspicion, Jassim is involved in a fatal car accident and Salwa--haunted by a miscarriage and confused by the affections of another man--sends large amounts of money back home. Halaby (West of the Jordan) uses this second novel to zero in on clashing cultures and lob rhetorical Molotov cocktails against the land of "antennas to God." Her prose crackles, but at the expense of her characters, whose inner lives are unconvincing even as their circumstances are awfully real. (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
A PEN Beyond Margins winner for her first novel, West of the Jordan, Halaby sets her new work around the time of the 9/11 attacks. Jassim and Salwa Haddad, an Arabic couple living in Arizona, feel the effects of the country's changed attitude far from New York. While dealing with this greater tragedy, Jassim and Salwa must also deal with personal troubles that change their marriage forever. Jassim accidentally kills a teenage boy while driving home from his daily swim, and Salwa confronts the miscarriage of a baby she never told her husband about. The emotional impact of both events propels each into the arms of another, as Jassim searches for someone he can confide in and Salwa thinks she finds romance with a young American coworker with a secret of his own. Cultures collide, and what was once considered taboo may not be what it seems. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries, this novel would make a thought-provoking book club choice.-Leann Restaino, Girard, OH Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
In Tucson, the marriage of a Jordanian couple is tested by internal and external pressures. In her second novel, Halaby (West of the Jordan, 2003) explores cultural gulfs, immigrant alienation and racist stereotypes, via the relationship between Jassim and Salwa Haddad, and between the Haddads and the US. While the post-9/11 mood exposes the pair to predictable scrutiny and prejudice, the flawed marriage is already vulnerable, given that Salwa is lying to Jassim about her broodiness (he claims not to want children) and he has withheld from her the fact that the boy he knocked down in a driving accident has actually died. Other secrets further divide the couple. Salwa's attraction to Jake, a flaky, drug-dealing, demon lover of a coworker, turns into a foolish affair; and Jassim develops a comforting, possibly sexual friendship with a heart-of-gold waitress, Penny. Halaby partially compensates for the inconsistencies of her story through the quality of incidental observation and her efforts to pinpoint the differing values between America-the country Salwa's parents left because it was "not worth losing our souls so we could have nice things"-and the Jordanian homeland, to which Salwa eventually tries to return as a means of extricating herself from her entanglement with Jake. Jassim, a hydrologist with access to the city's water supply, loses his job as a result of an FBI investigation. He's on the brink of involvement with Penny when Jake attacks Salwa, an action that reunites the couple, who will eventually return to Jordan together. Intermittent heavy-handedness and the author's decision to manipulate her characters like chess pieces, without plausible motivation, sabotage anoccasionally lyrical story.
