28 Dec / The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar [in Booklist]
*STARRED REVIEW
“Exceptional” is the only word for such a confluence of multiple #OwnVoices as the trifecta of trans Arab artists (author, character, and narrator) gathered to create this audible literary feast. In alternating epistolary chapters set decades apart, trans activist Samy Figaredo (making their audio debut) and seasoned Lameece Issaq seamlessly, convincingly embody Zeyn Joukhadar’s (The Map of Salt and Stars) Syrian American immigrant New York (and beyond).
Figaredo is an emotionally cautious, understandably anxious, still-capable-of-wonder Nadir, who writes to his dead ornithologist mother about his longing for connections, his isolation, his stalled artistry. He’s miraculously uncovered the journals of Laila Z in an abandoned building in what was once New York’s Little Syria.
Gently, fluently narrating the pages achingly addressed to long-lost lover “B,” Issaq manifests Laila Z, revealing her intimate journey from immigrant child to talented painter to wife and mother. And then she disappeared, leaving behind a rebellious, avian legacy that inspired many, including Nadir’s own mother.
Nadir and Laila Z’s stories are, of course, destined to intersect, interconnected through mysterious rare birds and hidden secrets, ready for discovery.
Review: “Media,” Booklist Online, December 10, 2020
Readers: Adult
Published: 2020