50 pages • 1-hour read
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section contains discussion of anti-gay bias, substance use, and sexual content.
Chapter 1 Summary: “2023”
Raja and his mother, Zalfa, are in their apartment kitchen. Zalfa sits with their tablecloth around her neck as Raja colors her hair. The two easily banter back and forth, each teasing the other gently. Zalfa suggests Raja begin coloring his hair in order to attract a new boyfriend, and Raja counters that Zalfa herself has failed to attract anyone new in spite of her own dyed hair. On the balcony across the way, one of their young neighbors stands in his boxers. Raja goes to the window, and the boy, noticing Raja’s interest, begins to make suggestive motions, flirting with Raja even though, unlike Raja, he prefers the company of women to men.
Zalfa calls Raja in and suggests they spend the evening together. She wants to take edibles and play canasta. Thinking back to his younger days, Raja recalls getting high as an adventure. Now, as he too approaches old age, he views it more as a chance for some uninterrupted sleep. Later, the two eat their edibles and look out the window as night approaches. They hear the sound of generators turning on, and Raja helps Zalfa with the laundry.
Chapter 2 Summary: “2002-2021: The Banking Collapse & The Covid Pandemic”
In 2021, Raja receives an invitation from the American Excellence Foundation, inviting him to a three-month writing residency in Virginia. Not having written anything in 25 years, Raja is dubious but not entirely uninterested, either. The only book Raja has ever published, A Walk with the Japanese Ghosts of Beirut, was an account, written in Japanese, of walks that he took around Beirut during the Civil War in 1985. Raja hardly feels that this book even qualifies him as a writer. He has been, for decades now, a high-school philosophy teacher in Lebanon. Still, the book was financially successful and allowed him to amass a considerable nest egg. He spent some of it helping his mother pay for plastic surgery, but the rest he dutifully saved for retirement. Unfortunately, like everyone else in the country, Raja lost his savings during the 2019 banking crisis and is now broke.
Raja and his mother Zalfa have a happy relationship, and Raja has been pleased to see the way that Zalfa bloomed in the wake of her husband’s death. Long used to subservience, after a suitable mourning period, Zalfa began to take cultural classes and was able to spend as much time as she wanted with her family. She dotes on both of her sons, although Raja has no particular love for his brother Farouk, who has always been an unkind person and a liar.
The novel flashes back to 2014. Farouk calls Raja to ask for money, claiming he owes a considerable sum to a loan shark and is moving his family to Dubai to escape becoming the victim of violence. He is flabbergasted when Raja refuses and asks Zalfa instead. She demands to be taken with them and sells everything she owns, including her apartment and a large table that is a family heirloom.
Incensed, Raja demands to buy the table. An argument ensues during which each (only half-jokingly) insults the other and Farouk, but eventually she relents. Raja wants the table not because it will fit into his apartment but because it represents the history of his family and of Lebanon itself. Also, he knows that his mother loves it.
Zalfa moves to Dubai with Farouk and his family, but they mistreat her: They expect her to cook and clean, give her no money, do not let her color her hair, and prohibit her from using the car except to act as chauffeur to their children. After a few months, Raja sends her a first-class ticket back to Lebanon. Upon her arrival, she reflects that both her late husband and Farouk were unlikeable people. Raja wholeheartedly agrees.
She moves in with Raja and, to his surprise, sets the conditions of their cohabitation: She will cook, but they will share cleaning duties. She will try to respect that the apartment is Raja’s, but as she is his mother, can make no promises. She will be given access to Raja’s bank account. Never able to say no to his mother, Raja agrees. They live together harmoniously, in large part because Raja realizes that capitulating to his mother is the best way to deal with her. Even though she is social and Raja prefers solitude, they develop a rhythm of sorts, and Raja is happy to have given her shelter from Farouk.
Their peace is shattered in 2019 at the beginning of the Lebanese banking crisis. Due to corruption and collusion between the government and the nation’s banks, everyone in Lebanon loses their savings. Raja is initially shocked but settles into a quiet grief. Since he is employed and is paid in dollars, he is in a better position than many. Zalfa, by contrast, flies into a rage. She manages to get a meeting with the bank. After screaming at one of the assistants and then changing course and comforting the terrified woman, she manages to obtain permission to withdraw several thousand dollars from their savings. It will be the last time they are able to access more than a few hundred dollars at once.
Protests grip the country as people everywhere in Lebanon take to the streets and clash with the police. Raja learns from his students, whom he refers to as his “brats,” that his mother has been attending demonstrations, talking back to police, and was even tear-gassed. Raja, who fears for her safety as the police have begun shooting protesters, is livid. He confronts her, and they argue. Zalfa continues to attend the protests anyway, with increased fervor. She develops friendships with many of his students, which irks Raja, but there is little he can do about it. They clash further over Raja’s cousin Nahed, whom Raja has long disliked. Raja finds out that Nahed is, like him, also queer, and Raja is irritated that his mother would have kept this detail from him.
The demonstrations stop only because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Raja and Zalfa, like everyone else in Beirut, are stuck inside. Zalfa, an extrovert, finds it difficult to acclimate to quarantine, but Raja, an introvert, finds the quiet soothing. Zalfa and Raja begin to take walks outside, Raja enjoying the empty streets and Zalfa relishing the opportunity to chat with passers-by.
During this time period, Raja recalls the Israeli invasion in 1981. He remained in Beirut even when so many others left and ended up letting a friend of a friend, a mechanic named Mansour, stay with him. The two had sex even though Raja was sure Mansour had only been with women before. Mansour, before fleeing to Jordan, left Raja a generator, which he still uses to this day.
On one of their walks, Raja and Zalfa meet Madame Taweel. Raja knows that she is a local gangster, but Zalfa does not. Zalfa greets her a little too enthusiastically, causing her bodyguard to jump up and draw his gun. Undeterred, Zalfa insults the man and explains to Madame Taweel that she was just trying to say hello. Madame Taweel, who is a large, imposing woman, barks out a loud laugh. Much to Raja’s chagrin, this laugh is the beginning of a lasting friendship. Madame Taweel and Zalfa begin to spend more and more time together, and each tells the other her secrets.
Zalfa even shares Raja’s secrets, and he is often irked to come home to find them discussing him: Zalfa shares when he has diarrhea, shows Madame Taweel the films he made starring himself in drag, and the women beg Raja to share his makeup techniques with them. The two women begin doing each other all kinds of favors. Raja does his best not to criticize Madame Taweel too much, although he remains upset that his mother’s new best friend is the neighborhood gangster.
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
The novel begins with an in-depth portrait of Raja and his mother, later in life when the two are cohabiting in what used to be Raja’s apartment, with this living arrangement introducing the theme of The Complexity of Familial Relationships. Raja and Zalfa are depicted as good-naturedly bickering and teasing each other. At one point, Zalfa cries out: “I can’t believe you would talk to your mother that way. May your house crumble. Do you have anything to eat in your stupid refrigerator?” (27). She doesn’t mean “may your house crumble” literally, nor is she upset that Raja himself was just teasing her—gentle mocking is just their communication style, revealing both their testiness and their affection for one another.
Raja and Zalfa’s use of expletive-laden humor sets the novel’s tone. The author discusses some serious, difficult subjects, but always in a humorous voice, injecting levity into moments that otherwise might be emotionally weighty and hard to read about. Raja and Zalfa have a long, complicated history and were not always as close as they are when Raja is in his 60s. That they have forgiven, forgotten, and learned to see each other in a new light embodies the idea that family relationships, even unhappy ones, are malleable and can change shape as time passes.
Zalfa’s characterization also takes center stage during these chapters. In addition to her wry, often sharp sense of humor, Zalfa is strong, resilient, and domineering. She is accustomed to getting her way, although not in a dictatorial manner. She tells Raja that she will make an effort to respect his boundaries when she moves in with him, but admits that because she is his mother and the more strong-willed of the two, she might struggle from time to time. This positions Zalfa as a strong matriarch figure, who defies societal expectations that she be submissive and quiet as an elderly widowed woman.
Zalfa also demonstrates her strength of will in response to her husband’s death. Even Raja is surprised that Zalfa grieves so little. She admits that her marriage was unhappy and that she prefers her newfound sense of freedom to the confines of her relationship with Raja’s father. These chapters also introduce Farouk. Like Raja’s father, Farouk is an antagonistic figure. During this stage of the novel, Farouk tries to borrow a sizeable sum of money from Raja and proves an unkind host to Zalfa. Farouk’s bad behavior will ultimately be revealed as part of his father’s fraught legacy: Farouk and Raja’s father was domineering in his own household, and taught his oldest son to behave much in the same way.
Navigating Queer Identity Against Familial and Societal Judgment also emerges as an important theme. Raja flirts with a much younger man whose sexuality the novel never clarifies. He is comfortable in his own skin and does not hide his queerness from anyone in his social circle or his neighborhood. Zalfa gently teases Raja about the need for him to find another boyfriend, demonstrating that she, too, is comfortable with her son’s sexuality. In a culture that does not view gay identity as a legitimate identity, Zalfa’s acceptance is particularly meaningful. To accept Raja, she has had to reject the ideological position of both her family and her community.
Other strong female characters abound in this novel, as Zalfa, Madame Taweel, and even Yasmine and Nahed resist stereotypes. In a novel that is interested in the impact of gendered socialization and patriarchal societal organization, the author’s use of resilient female figures is noteworthy. Raja demonstrates that it is possible for Lebanese men to reject traditional masculinity, while women like Zalfa and the others illustrate that even within Lebanon’s patriarchal society, it is possible for women to have agency.
Madame Taweel makes her first appearance in these chapters, demonstrating the strength and agency of Lebanese women while introducing the theme of The Impact of History on Individuals and Communities. A local gangster with considerable clout, she runs her organization with an iron fist, dealing in generators and other black-market goods. She sells generators because the government is not able to stabilize Lebanon’s power grid, and rolling blackouts remain common. Although a more subtle nod to Lebanon’s corruption than the author’s depiction of the banking crisis and Beirut’s port explosion, Madame Taweel remains an important point of engagement with Lebanese history, with the government’s inefficiency and corruption creating an opening for her black-market career. Madame Taweel will also become an important part of Zalfa and Raja’s support structure.
The banking crisis erupts during these chapters, impacting various individuals and the country at large. Raja, his mother, and most Lebanese are robbed of their entire life savings. Engagement with these real-life moments in Lebanese history broadens the scope of the narrative, drawing connections between the experience of individual characters and the entire nation. Raja and Zalfa’s response to the crisis also reveals important aspects of their characterization and political views. Raja, a contemplative introvert, feels real grief at the loss of his savings. He retreats inward and reflects on the difficulty of living in an almost-failed state. Zalfa, by contrast, takes to the streets. Her participation in the protests reveals the anger and frustration boiling just beneath the surface of Lebanon’s citizenry, while Raja’s detachment reveals his private cynicism and skepticism of the possibility of true reform.
Unlock all 50 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs