EIGHT MONTHS ON GHAZZAH STREET: Hilary Mantel

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The couple settle down to life in an apartment on the titular Ghazzah Street – a building with numerous gates and locks which must be locked and unlocked on entry and exit for the safety and security of all.

My husband, our two young sons and I lived in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia from 1983 to 1991, almost the same time-frame as Hillary Mantel lived in Jeddah on the western side.The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. Things always start off as being relatively straight forward and obvious in the mind but the maze of thoughts and ideas that Mantel always seems to present takes you to a place that one could never have imagined at the start of the book.

The big boom of construction was winding down in Jeddah, but Andrew goes out and establishes a life while the company wrangled an entrance visa for Fran. Dopo l’iniziale alienante solitudine, inizia qualche forma di contatto con altre donne, vicine di casa, ma rimane sempre una decisiva distanza di cultura e un ingestibile senso di incomprensione (ad un certo punto Frances sbotta con Andrew: «No wonder they have such a bloody awful religion», visto che vivono in un luogo dove non cresce niente). Rumours among the expat community about someone using it as a meeting place for an affair – don’t entirely satisfy her.Like so many who joined Peace Corps to make a difference (myself absolutely included) what do you do when faced with people who stubbornly refuse to accept the new colonialist’s ways? Andrew says that she is imagining it, though others suggest that the Deputy Minister, who allegedly owns the building, may be using it for a love nest. Yasmin and her husband, their young baby and a servant occupy one flat, they are originally from Pakistan. I will never in a million years understand why so many American and other Western travelers insist that every country they go to - temporarily mind you - needs to adjust to THEM. She begins a diary recording her impressions; makes friends with Yasmin and Samira, two young married Islamic women on the block; and wonders about the supposedly empty apartment above hers and Andrew's, from which she's certain that she's heard sobbing.