The wrong end of the telescope

Mina Simpson, a Lebanese trans woman doctor living in America, has left her old life. After all, most of her family disowned her after she came out. But when Mina is summoned to the Greek island of Lesbos to help with the catastrophic situation in the Moria refugee camp, she is again haunted by ghosts from her past. While battling her demons, she meets Sumaiya, a young mother who is dying from cancer. Sumaiya and her family are newly arrived refugees, and Mina helps them navigate the complexities of the camp while also figuring out how to handle the ravages of a devastating illness. Mina's story is interspersed with missives to a mysterious "you," a friend who seems to be as deeply unsettled by the plight of refugees as she is. Mina is a riveting narrator, struggling to find her footing even when the weight of her identity is crushing. Alameddine (The Angel of History, 2016) also paints a kaleidoscopic view of the many facets of the refugee crisis, including a scathing indictment of disaster tourism.

A Lebanese doctor travels to the island of Lesbos to help refugees and confront her past in the profound and wonderful latest from Alameddine (The Angel of History), a meditation on loss, resilience, and love. Born in Beirut but long settled in the U.S., Mina Simpson is trans and estranged from every member of her family except her older brother Mazen, who flies to the island to assist her. Soon, their paths cross that of a blocked Lebanese writer. The chapters alternate between Mina's account of her time on Lesbos, where she treats a Syrian woman named Sumaiya who is dying from liver cancer and pleads with Mina not to tell her family, and second-person narration directed at the writer, who encouraged Mina to write about the refugees because he didn't feel up to the task ("You weren't able to find the right words even after numerous sessions on your psychiatrist's couch," Mina narrates). Confronted by the pain so many refugees describe, Mina recalls the lost world of her own childhood and bonds with Sumaiya over their shared desire to protect their families from the truth. As Mina and her writer-interlocutor are each consumed by the effort to communicate the horror of the refugee experience, Alameddine crafts a wise, deeply moving story that can still locate humor in the pit of hell (Mina, agreeing to let the writer tell her story, jokes, "Whatever you do ... don't fucking call it A Lebanese Lesbian in Lesbos"). This is a triumph. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi, Inc. (Sept.)This review has been updated to clarify a plot point. It also has been corrected; a previous version incorrectly stated the character Sumaiya suffered from lung cancer.

A Lebanese doctor living in the United States journeys to the Greek island of Lesbos to help out in a refugee camp at the behest of her friend Emma. Mina Simpson, a trans woman, has long been estranged from her family (with the exception of her brother Mazen) and her homeland--the trip to Lesbos is the closest she has been to Lebanon in 30 years. Given the resonance of her experience, Mina goes to the camps not only to help others but also to heal something personal. Mina feels unequal to the scope of what she encounters until she meets Syrian refugee Sumaiya, her husband Sammy, and their children. Sumaiya has liver cancer, and Mina attempts to find her whatever help and comfort she can in a place where little of either exists and to get the family to Athens, where Sumaiya can get better care. VERDICT The great strength of this latest novel from National Book Award finalist Alameddine (An Unnecessary Woman) lies in how it deftly combines the biographical with the historical; the small, more personal moments often carry the most weight. A remarkable, surprisingly intimate tale of human connection in the midst of disaster.--Lawrence Rungren, Andover, MA

A Lebanese-born American surgeon reflects on her volunteer stint at a Greek refugee camp and her "cataclysmic family expulsion" for being trans. It has been decades since the surgeon, a Harvard alumnus in her late 50s who lives with her wife in Chicago and goes by the adopted name Mina Simpson, was in the Middle East. But when a friend working for a Swedish NGO calls for help, she goes. The Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos is fast becoming "an inhumane [mess]," but Mina does her best to treat and comfort Sumaiya, a Syrian woman dying of cancer who has concealed her fate from her family. As grim as things are there, and for all the daily atrocities that force people to flee their homeland--military bombings, terrorist attacks, bureaucratic cruelties, vile prejudice--Mina's measured account is streaked with irreverence. (Bono, Oprah, and Madonna are tagged "the gods of altruism.") Partly addressed to a blocked Lebanese writer of note who convinces her to chronicle her experience--for him, harsh reality has rendered storytelling "impotent"--Mina's account has a Scheherazade-like sparkle. Her subjects include a beautiful young woman who "refused squalor" by studding the pantry in her tent with sequins and the Lebanese writer's father, whose prized aviary atop his home overlooking Beirut was randomly shelled by the U.S. battleship New Jersey. Mina's own story about her struggle to overcome her mother's monstrous treatment and be seen for who she is is affecting and amusing. Such is the ease and openness of the narrative that it's tempting to read it as autobiographical. Alameddine, a queer San Franciscan who grew up in Kuwait and Lebanon, also was separated from his family. In any case, no one writes fiction that is more naturally an extension of lived life than this master storyteller. Engaging and unsettling in equal measure. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.