This is one of those books that you have to read at the right time to truly appreciate it. Unfortunately for me it wasn’t quite the right time of year for me. The online book group I’m in read this in April for Arabic heritage month and unfortunately for me it was the wrong time of year.
The Thirty Names of Night weaves together three generations of stories extending from Syria to the midwest to modern day New York. The story edges up to the line of magical realism, but never really crosses the line. It highlights just how magical our world is on its own.
I found both Laila and Nadir’s stories to be incredibly moving. They both had their own struggles, but found themselves and their loves and carved out their own existence in their fields and their worlds. Johkhadar also did a great job of highlighting the immigrant experience across generations, the good and the bad, and even brought in some of the anti-Arab/Islamaphobic sentiment that much of the US cycles through on too regular a basis.
I also found Joukhadar’s decision to scribble out Nadir’s deadname and actively not refer to them with a name until close to the very end of the novel was so smart. It was frustrating at first, but when I realized why they did it I was 100% on board. Although the story focused on Nadir and Laila, the story included so many other characters with diverse sexualities and experiences. This really rounded out the story, especially the modern storyline, bringing New York to life in such a way that I feel so many authors just sort of skim over.
Recommendation: This was a bit of a slog, but 100% worth reading. Joukhadar has a way with language and pacing of sentences and paragraphs that is poetic and lyrical. I enjoyed the parallel journeys within the story and how they wove in and out of each other. Unfortunately, I read this at the wrong time of year. This is the type of novel that I would want to read as the days are getting shorter and the temperature is slowly dropping. Although it has a relatively happy resolution, it just feels like the type of novel to read at sunset, not at sunrise. That says more about me and perhaps which of the three interwoven stories I identified with most, but others in my book group seemed to also agree it was a bit of a slog.
Opening Line: “Tonight, five years to the day since I lost you, forty-eight white-throated sparrows fell from the sky.”
Closing Line: “On the edge of the city, planes are landing from Beirut and from Cairo, angling their enormous wings.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)
Additional Quotes from The Thirty Names of Night
“I haven’t prayed since the day they slid you into the earth. Your grave faces a copse of pines that separates the cemetery from the homes of rich families who don’t want to see the dead and the grieving. We buried not a person but a continent that day. We’re made from clay, after all, aren’t we, and underground springs and threads of copper run in our veins. When this country asks me where I’m from, they aren’t asking for the city on my birth certificate, but whose earth is in my blood.” (109)
“The brain, like any organ in the body, knows wordless truths, knows health from sickness, knows how to recognize self and other. Maybe it’s true that the self is every artist’s first obsession, that every other subject—a plate of oranges, a mountain, a lover’s face—is just a recognition of the self in another form.” (230)
