That Other Me

After her successful debut novel, The Sand Fish (2009), Emirati writer Gargash returns to Dubai to paint a complex portrait of a family, as its members struggle to maintain their ties with one another and to their traditions, while consequences of enormous wealth prove more threatening than modernity or Western influence. The story unfolds through three perspectives: Majed is an affluent patriarch with grown children, who drinks in private but whose extramarital affairs have been less well hidden. Dalal is his 20-something illegitimate daughter, who has no contact with her father and has been living in Cairo with her mother, hoping to break into the music business as a singer. Their link is Mariam, Majed’s obedient niece, whom he’s putting through dental school (also in Cairo), and who is Dalal’s unlikely best friend. The novel struggles to pick up speed, particularly as a result of its awkward prose. When, for instance, Dalal announces her upcoming appointment with someone in show business and Mariam seems confused, Dalal thinks, “She knows how much I’ve struggled these past 10 months to find a composer who would create a winning song for me.” As Mariam’s family in Dubai debates whether or not it’s too modern for a young girl to be studying abroad, the dialogue remains stilted and the conversation predictable. (Jan.)