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Secret
Son
is an ambitious novel. Through the perspective of 19-year-old
Youssef El Mekki, Laila Lalami addresses the distribution
of wealth in Moroccan society, terrorism, religion, identity,
and coming-of-age. As a result, the book feels a little distracted,
for as soon as readers emotionally connect with the text,
Lalami changes scenes or characters or even continents. Yet,
despite the book's shifting focus, Lalami delivers an empathetic
experience of life in a distinct but relevant culture.
The novel
centers on Youssef's efforts to find and connect with his
father. Growing up in the impoverished community of Hay An
Najat, Youssef feels himself to be an outsider because he
was raised by his mother. When Youssef learns that his father
was not killed in a tragic accident but rather is alive and
a successful businessman, he finds his way into his father's
office and introduces himself into his father's life. Nabil
Amrani, Youssef's father, has cut off his daughter in a dispute
over a boyfriend and finds solace in grooming a son he didn't
know he had. As Nabil guides his son's career, Youssef learns
that wealth and connections are necessary for success.
While
Youssef becomes entranced with his father's generosity, the
lives of those around him change. His friends Maati and Amin
struggle to find work. When Maati begins work as a security
guard for a local religious group known as The Party, the
three boys become entangled with The Party's political agenda.
The organization appeals to the boys through medical assistance,
drinks, and a place to hang out. Lalami subtly plays the appeal
of such an empathetic establishment against the background
of unemployment and poverty that haunts the young men of Hay
An Najat.
At the
same time, Youssef's half-sister Amal, a student at UCLA,
struggles to balance her family's expectations with her own
changing values. Lalami hints at the complexity of modern
race relations in America as Amal is repeatedly identified
with Arab stereotypes, "these words add[ing] up over time,
like grains of sand in a glass jar, telling her she did not
belong." Her boyfriend Fernando, whose mother came from Brazil,
experiences similar marginalization within American culture
when he is mistaken for a valet because of his skin color.
Lalami effectively communicates the sense of displacement
for an entire generation of Moroccan youth; regardless of
social class or income, they share an inability to place themselves
within their inherited culture or within the cultures around
the world to which a lucky few are exposed.
While
balancing all of these story lines, Lalami interweaves her
characters' perspectives so that we see a scene first from
Nabil's point of view and then repeated in Youssef's point
of view. This approach creates more well-rounded characters,
but feeling emotionally connected to Youssef's journey becomes
more difficult because readers are repeatedly pulled out of
it. Lalami seems to be itching toward a narrative that can
convey life in Morocco across social class, income, and age,
but this project seems better suited to the multiple perspectives
of a short story collection than the continuous narrative
of a novel.
Nonetheless,
Lalami successfully evokes a culture and lifestyle that is
foreign to most of her readers. She acknowledges the inadequacy
of writing about Morocco in English with a quotation from
Gustavo Pérez Firmat's poem "Dedication": "The fact that I
am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted
to tell you." Lalami is forced to struggle against this cultural
divide, as she cannot include idioms or even French or Arabic
phrases without some sort of explanation to the reader. Secret
Son is a valuable read because it brings us closer to
an often misunderstood and undervalued culture while helping
us understand how we view those who come from different cultures.
(July
2009)
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