Towelhead: A Novel
by Alicia Erian
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alicia ErianEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-04-04
ISBN: 0743285123
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of Towelhead: A Novel
Book Review: Towelhead Is Anything But A Dry Read
Summary: 5 Stars
As the title suggests, this book is about the harsh name-calling of a person of Middle Eastern descent. The person in question is a young teenage girl entering adolescence. But it goes much more beyond that. It's about the many poor relationships that she must endure before finding out that people (especially children) shouldn't really be treated the way she has been.
The book is by first-time novelist Alicia Erian, and I picked it up because I always enjoy reading authors' first efforts. It was definitely an easy read, told from the perspective of the 13-year-old girl, Jasira, who lives with her strict (and physically abusive) Lebanese father in Texas after her Irish mother sends her to live there. It was well-written in that it was written as a 13-year-old might write. The language was simple, direct, and adolescent (in a good way). Had Erian written it differently, it would have lost its realistic approach into the mind, thoughts, and feelings of a young girl.
Jasira's mother sends her to live there after she discovers that the mother's boyfriend did some inappropriate things to her daughter. Of course, her mother maintains the relationship with her boyfriend, showing where her loyalty lies.
While in Texas, Jasira befriends the neighbors, much to her father's displeasure and begins to babysit for a young boy who feels free to use "Towelhead" as an appropriate term for his babysitter. Jasira also befriends the boy's father, and he later sexually abuses her, making her feel like she did something wrong, and that it was okay that he did so.
To add fuel to the fire, we discover that Jasira's father is a racist and tells her to stop seeing an African-American boy in school. She goes against his wishes (behind his back, of course), as she likes spending time with her new boyfriend...and exploring sex with him.
"Towelhead" could very well be this generation's "Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret?" It is a bit more graphic, though, so parents should be a bit wary and read the book first. That's not to say that this is a teenager's book. It's very much for adults. But it contains some valuable lessons for teenagers and adults alike about relationships and parenting.
Kudos to Erain for an enjoyable book!
Summary of Towelhead: A Novel
It is August 1990. Saddam Hussein has just invaded Kuwait, and Jasira's mother has bought her daughter a one-way ticket to Texas to live with her strict Lebanese father. Living in a neat model home in Charming Gates, just outside of Houston, Jasira struggles with her father's rigid lifestyle and the racism of her classmates, who call her "towelhead." For the first time, the painful truth hits her: she's an Arab. Her aching loneliness and growing frustration with her parents' conflicting rules drive her to rebel in very dangerous ways. Most disturbingly, she becomes sexually obsessed with the bigoted army reservist next door, who alternately cares for, excites, and exploits her.Thirteen-year-old Jasira wants what every girl wants: love and acceptance and the undivided attention of whoever she's with. And if she canšt get that from her parents, then why not from her mother's boyfriend, or her father's muscle-bound neighbor, Mr. Vuoso? Alicia Erianšs incandescent debut novel, Towelhead, will ring true for readers who remember the rarely poetic transition from childhood to young adulthood. Jasira is a creature of contradiction: both innocent (reading romantic intentions into the grossest displays of lust) and oddly clear-sighted, especially when it comes to the imbalance of power, and the things we do for love. When her mother exiles her to Houston to live with Jasira's strict, quick-to-anger Lebanese father, she quickly learns what aspects of herself to suppress in front of him. In private, however, she conducts her sexual awakening with all the false confidence that pop culture and her neighbor's Playboy magazines have provided.
Jasira tells her story with candor and glimmers of dark, unexpected humor--as when she describes her mother's boyfriend Barry's assistance in her personal grooming: "A week later, Barry broke down and told her the truth. That he had shaved me himself. That he had been shaving me for weeks. That he couldn't seem to stop shaving me." The freshness of her narrative voice sets Towelhead apart from the sentimental or purely harsh treatment of similar subject matter elsewhere, and makes the novel a promising follow-up to Erianšs well-regarded short story collection, The Brutal Language of Love. --Regina Marler
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