Behind You Is the Sea

The novel is a collection of interconnected stories set in Baltimore, each narrated by a different member of a Palestinian American community. The characters share family ties, neighborhood bonds, and the weight of displacement, and their stories overlap across generations.

In "A Child of Air," Reema Baladi, a high school senior, reveals she is pregnant by her boyfriend Torrey, a slightly older Puerto Rican man. Her friend Amal plans to terminate her own pregnancy with financial help from her brother Marcus, a police officer, but Reema decides to keep her baby. Reema's father, Jibril, is dying of cancer, and her mother has retreated into near-silence. The family is Palestinian, from the village of Tel al-Hilou, and Jibril spent his life working low-wage jobs. In AP English, a Robert Louis Stevenson poem moves Reema deeply: "It is but a child of air / That lingers in the garden there" (10), crystallizing her fear of loss. When Jibril dies, Reema calls Marcus for help with arrangements and tells Torrey she is keeping the baby. She names the boy Jibril after her father.

In "Ride Along," Marcus Salameh, a Baltimore police detective, takes Amal on a ride-along for a college sociology project. His family is fractured: His mother died 14 years ago, and his father, Bashir, lives alone, having erased all traces of Amal from the house. Marcus's aunt Nadya married Walid Ammar, a Palestinian real estate investor. Amal's adolescence was marked by substance use, running away, and an abortion Marcus paid for, but she has since rebuilt her life in college. Marcus meets Amal's boyfriend Jahron, a Black graduate student studying classical music. Marcus's girlfriend Michelle accidentally fires his service weapon during an argument, grazing his arm, and he breaks up with her. When Marcus tells Bashir about Amal's upcoming graduation and Jahron, Bashir responds with blunt racism and leaves. At Amal's graduation, where she earns magna cum laude honors, only Marcus and Jahron attend. Bashir has issued an ultimatum: If Marcus supports Amal's relationship, he will lose his father too.

In "Mr. Ammar Gets Drunk at the Wedding," Walid Ammar narrates his misery at his son Raed's wedding, held fewer than 40 days after the death of Walid's mother. He is appalled by the American-style ceremony. When Raed mentions his grandmother during photos, Walid erupts, shouting that the wedding disrespects her memory. Marcus, a guest, intervenes, and Walid taunts him about Amal's estrangement. Marcus punches Walid. Humiliated, Walid wanders into an empty lounge and discovers that the harpist is the same hospice nurse who cared for his dying mother. She invites him to sit and listen, and he finds unexpected peace.

In "The Hashtag," Rania Mahfouz, a stay-at-home mother, fights for her son Eddie, who has dyslexia, dysgraphia, and Asperger's syndrome. Her husband Yousef dismisses the school crisis entirely. Rania hires Samira Awadah, a formidable education lawyer, who forces the school to meet its legal obligation under FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education). Meanwhile, the hashtag #Justice4Rasha goes viral: An anonymous blogger alleges that Rasha, Yousef's young cousin in Palestine, was killed by her family in an honor killing. While doing laundry, Rania recognizes a shirt she bought Yousef as the one worn by a man pulling curtains closed in a video of the killing. She grabs Eddie and flees. Yousef confesses that the family summoned him to confront Rasha and that her brother struck first with a brick. Rania decides her marriage is over and plans to contact Samira for a divorce lawyer.

In "Behind You Is the Sea," Maysoon Baladi, Reema's much younger sister, works as a house cleaner. She takes a job at the mansion of Dalia Ammar, married to Demetri, Walid's son. A sexual relationship develops between Maysoon and Demetri. Meanwhile, Gabriel, Reema's 17-year-old son, scores a 5 on the AP Calculus exam, and school counselors call about university scholarships. When Dalia accuses Maysoon of stealing, Maysoon suspects Dalia's son Amir has been selling household items to fund substance use. She quits. An Arabic plaque in Demetri's office reads, "Behind you is the sea. Before you, the enemy. You have left now only the hope of your courage and your constancy" (104-105), the famous speech by the eighth-century commander Tariq ibn Ziyad, who burned his ships so retreat was impossible. When Demetri later hands Maysoon a thousand dollars in cash, she drops the money and walks out, feeling reduced to a transaction.

In "Gyroscopes," Layla Marwan, a high school junior and daughter of Walid and Nadya Ammar's quiet daughter Lamia, objects when her school announces its play will be Aladdin, arguing the story perpetuates stereotypes about Arab Americans. Her mother validates her feelings, and Layla builds a gyroscope with her physics teacher, fascinated by how the spinning disk rights itself. When a white classmate is cast as Jasmine in a black wig and heavy eyeliner, Layla locks herself in her workroom and smashes the stage mechanism she designed with a brick hammer.

In "Cleaning Lentils," Hiba Ammar, Demetri and Dalia's younger daughter, has withdrawn from college after her boyfriend Daniel posted a nonconsensual photo of her online. She made a suicide attempt and now recovers at her grandparents' spare, loving rowhouse. Her grandfather Seedo enlists her to plant garlic; her arms shake from weakness. An apple tree in the yard, growing from stacked tires and tethered to a wall, becomes a quiet image of fragile persistence. Near Christmas, her grandmother Sits asks Hiba to help clean lentils, sorting dried beans to remove small stones. Sits explains that lentils kept the family alive through three wars. Hiba watches her grandmother's fingers and begins to imitate the movements, separating the stones that could hurt from the lentils that could save.

In "Worry Beads," Samira Awadah turns 40. Her ex-husband Jerome beat her and broke her arm; after the divorce, her mother blamed her and expelled her from the family. Only her father remained loyal, though his advancing dementia now causes him to drift in and out of recognition. She meets Logan, a patient, persistent man who owns a party rental company. Her father's condition worsens, and he is moved to a care facility. During visits, he sometimes mistakes Samira for her mother and rages at "her" for casting their daughter out. Samira discovers she is pregnant, something she was told could never happen. When she announces the pregnancy, her mother slaps her. Baba erupts in Samira's defense and suffers a stroke. Logan proposes. Samira visits Baba in hospice, fingering his masbaha, worry beads carved from olive pits by his own father, and reflects that his moments of lucidity allow her to recapture how he loved her.

The final chapter returns to Marcus. Five years after Bashir's ultimatum, Marcus finds his father dead on the kitchen floor. Walid Ammar insists Bashir must be buried in Palestine. Marcus flies with the coffin, endures a 10-hour detention at Ben Gurion Airport, and is met by Rita, a young woman who oversees the Salameh family house. During the mourning period, Marcus learns Rita's history: Arrested at 15 during the First Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that began in 1987, she was imprisoned and sexually assaulted. After her release, the community shunned her. Bashir had been sending Rita money for years and left her 100,000 shekels in his will. Marcus is stunned: His father was capable of extraordinary compassion for a vulnerable outsider but withheld it from his own children. Marcus and Rita marry quietly before the memorial service, a practical arrangement granting her the option to immigrate. He returns to Baltimore and tells Amal, who says the revelation does not change her feelings. Months later, Rita calls: "Marcus, please. I'm ready." He answers, "Yes. I'll be there."