Flying Carpets

Habra's earlier work as a poet (Tea in Heliopolis) informs this new book of short stories; it's full of strange images and portraits that seem to twist and drift. Very few of the stories have any recognizable arc; some, like "Mariam" will take a character in stasis and peel back her layers, revealing secrets beneath. While there are some beautiful passages on food and landscape, other descriptions try too hard, as when Habra calls a fortuneteller's eyes "an impossible cross between molten lead and the unquiet softness of a fawn's restless eyes." Several of the earlier stories involve marriages in which subservient women placate dominant husbands, but later the stories become more magical. In "Noor El Qamar," an immortal moon goddess drops from the sky to live among humans; a woman experiences strange growths in "The Cure"; while "Succession" finds a man leaving his village for mountains full of white wolves. Though solutions to these predicaments are hinted at, they rarely resolve and are instead left to linger in the reader's mind. (Nov.)