Review by Booklist Review
Ramadan Ramsey's name bears witness to blessed origins. Growing up in pre-Katrina New Orleans with his beloved grandmother, Mama Joon, and his feckless aunt, Clarissa, Ramadan is the offspring of a sensuously spiritual love affair between African American Alicia and Syrian immigrant Mustafa. Initiated by the exchange of a forbidden potato chip at Mustafa's family's quick mart during the Muslim holy month, the lovers' mutual seduction unites Christian communion and Muslim iftar in one enchanted encounter. But Mustafa's relatives, horrified by Alicia's pregnancy and what it could mean for Mustafa's future, swiftly bundle Mustafa off to Syria, leaving Ramadan to grow up with a visceral craving for his father that he will go to extreme and quixotic lengths to fulfill. Cherished by Mama Joon, Ramadan lives a nearly idyllic if relentlessly focused life as time, illness, war, and natural disasters carry him to his destiny. Returning to fiction after a long hiatus, Edwards masterfully conveys the sights, smells, and tastes of each setting from the Ninth Ward to Istanbul and Aleppo. Surrounding Ramadan with a Dickensian array of churchgoers, fortune tellers, and hustlers as well as a kind-hearted Turkish cabdriver and Middle Eastern teens obsessed with American sports and music, Edwards vividly dramatizes every turn in his hero's quest to discover who he is.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
New Orleans music industry veteran and Whiting Award winner Edwards (Oscar Wilde Discovers America) returns after almost two decades with an ambitious globe-trotting epic as luscious and musical as the city he calls home. The tale takes readers from the Crescent City to Istanbul and finally to the war-torn city of Aleppo, as the eponymous hero searches for his father with an old letter found in a convenience store as his only clue. In between, Ramadan bonds with his grandmother, basks in the beauty of the Mississippi River, survives Hurricane Katrina, and makes countless friends in the Middle East by bonding over basketball, hip-hop, and other bits of Americana that appeal to young men across the world. Ramadan's resilience, quick wit, and steadfast spirit render him something of a 21st-century update on the characters of Dickens and Twain. Edwards, meanwhile, is a rare writer of deep, paternal wisdom, who can find the deeply, upliftingly spiritual element of nearly everything. (Even a potato chip can be as ecstatically powerful as those "symbolic bodies of Christ" that are offered at communion.) This will have readers enthralled with the beauty of life, despite all its tragedies and sorrows. Agent: Joy Harris, the Joy Harris Literary Agency. (Aug.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A young Southern boy travels to the Middle East to find his father in this delightful and intimate modern epic. Guggenheim fellow and Whiting Award winner Edwards harnesses the best of his storytelling powers to tell the tale of Ramadan Ramsey, a young boy who is at once blessed with the fierce love and protection of his maternal grandmother, Mama Joon, and whose privileged place in her heart sparks the enmity of the rest of his family. The novel begins in 1999, when Mustafa Totah, a Syrian immigrant in New Orleans, takes a job at his uncle Adad's convenience store. There, he meets Alicia Ramsey, a Black native of the city who beguiles him into breaking his Ramadan fast before sunset one day. Their love affair provokes the ire of uncle Adad, who informs Mustafa's family in Syria and sends him back. Unbeknownst to Mustafa, however, Alicia is pregnant with his child, whom she names Ramadan in an attempt to atone for having coaxed his father into breaking religious laws. Tragedy strikes again when Alicia dies of meningitis, leaving Ramadan under the guardianship of her mother, Mama Joon, who lavishes him with affection and, much to the chagrin of her eldest daughter, Clarissa, plans to bequeath him everything she owns, including her house. When Mama Joon dies, 12-year-old Ramadan decides to flee the wrath of the envious Clarissa and her vicious sons, traveling to the Middle East to find his father. Borrowing from the episodic structure of epic tales, the novel sustains a swift pace that only picks up momentum as it advances. The narrative voice is highly engaging, often combining humor and pathos in a single sentence so that even tragic events are imbued with lightness. A novel that is as exhilarating as it is moving; a fine achievement. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
