50 pages • 1-hour read
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
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Themes
Content Warning: This section contains discussion of anti-gay bias, violence, sexual violence, sexual content, and abuse.
The Complexity of Familial Relationships
Family relationships are at the forefront of the novel. Raja’s family relationships are often fraught, and particularly during childhood, they are often the source of serious emotional pain. Over the course of Raja’s lifetime, however, he realizes it is possible both to learn from toxic relationships and to forgive, forget, and grow alongside family members, illustrating the complexity of familial relationships.
Raja’s most difficult and unhappy relationships are with his father and brother Farouk. Both men are domineering and unkind. Having grown up in a deeply patriarchal society, Raja’s father expects to make all of the family’s decisions and teaches his eldest son to do the same. Additionally, both men are normatively masculine and subject Raja to verbal and emotional abuse because of his “effeminacy” and interest in hobbies usually reserved for young women in Lebanese society. As Raja ages, he spends less and less time with these men and gradually cuts them out of his life. When his father dies, Raja does not grieve. The lesson that Raja learns from these kinds of relationships is the importance of boundary-setting and emotional self-defense, as some family bonds cannot be healed.
By contrast, Raja’s relationship with his mother is more loving even though their personalities conflict: Raja is quiet, introverted, and contemplative, whereas Zalfa is outspoken and extraverted. Nevertheless, Raja comes to appreciate cohabiting with his mother in adulthood. During several flashbacks, he recalls moments during which she stood up for him, even to her controlling husband. He remembers the way she rushed to pick him up after his kidnapping and realizes how difficult it must have been for her to insist to Raja’s father that Raja be allowed to keep Mr. Cat. As they age and become roommates, Raja realizes that in spite of their family’s toxicity, his mother has always truly loved and respected him. Through his relationship with Zalfa, Raja learns the power not only of forgiveness but of being willing to rewrite the old narratives of family dynamics.
Raja also struggles in his relationship with his cousin Nahed. As a child, he often clashes with Nahed, whom he resents for her domineering personality. As adults, however, Raja once again learns that family dynamics can change. He and Nahed, who is also gay, bond over their shared position as family outcasts. Raja demonstrates emotional intelligence by listening with genuine interest to Nahed’s observations about their childhood relationship. Raja realizes that Nahed also found life in their family difficult and that she wanted to establish a friendship with him when they were adolescents, but Raja was too aloof. Raja adjusts his opinion of Nahed: She was not merely a family bully, but someone living out complex problems of her own. As he did with his mother, Raja rewrites his old narrative of Nahed, forging a new bond with her.
Raja ultimately learns through cohabiting with his mother, Yasmine, and Nahed, that his family has the power to transcend its dysfunction and become a source of love and support. Thus, in experiencing family as a source of both pain and joy, Raja recognizes the complexity of familial bonds.
Navigating Queer Identity Against Familial and Societal Judgment
Raja’s identity development is one of this novel’s key focal points, and his sexuality in particular becomes a source of difficulty as he contends with a society frequently riddled with anti-gay discrimination. Raja gradually comes to terms with himself in the face of bigotry and pushback, embodying the challenges of navigating queer identity against familial and societal judgment.
As a young boy, Raja contends with familial judgment from multiple members of his family. His father and brother are traditionally masculine men who expect Raja to conform to traditional gender roles. His father labels his interests “effeminate” and does his best to steer him toward more masculine toys and pastimes. His brother pokes relentless fun at Raja for how “weak” he is. Raja’s father and brother, in their desire to get Raja to play with cars rather than dolls, are enforcing the kind of gendered socialization that guides development in traditional, patriarchal societies, reflecting the expectation that boys become domineering, hyper-masculine figures.
As an adolescent, Raja still contends with these kinds of adverse familial and societal forces. As a teenager, he realizes: “I knew I didn’t like girls the way other boys did. I knew in every cell in my body. As soon as I started developing sexual fantasies, I knew I liked men in that way” (176). Raja understands that within his traditional and repressive family, he does not have the freedom to explore his sexuality. He also understands that because he is also quiet, intelligent, and perceived as eccentric, he is under more scrutiny than his classmates. He already stands out, and if he were to engage in open flirtation with other boys, someone would notice instantly. Nevertheless, Raja does find ways to engage in clandestine, queer liaisons. He has a short series of encounters with a boy he tutors and, when he is a bit older, a friend of a friend. As an adolescent, however, he keeps these kinds of relationships quiet.
Raja begins developing his self-confidence in who he is and what he wants to do in his friendship with Mrs. Murata, who helps him to see himself outside of the context of shame and judgment. She affirms his interest in topics that his classmates have always teased him for caring about, and he learns from her that it is okay to be eccentric. He also finds self-acceptance by embracing his intellect and his interpersonal intelligence. He becomes a successful, popular teacher who plays an important role in his community.
By the time Raja is an adult and has a successful career, he has become comfortable with his sexuality and, as he notes at the very beginning of the novel, is okay to be known as “the neighborhood homosexual” (6). He flirts with a much younger man whose own sexuality remains murky, unafraid to be judged either by that man or anyone else who might witness the two ogling each other across their balconies. By embracing all of these various facets of his identity, Raja also embraces his sexuality and sees himself as more than just a familial and societal outcast.
The Impact of History on Individuals and Communities
Lebanon’s fraught 20th and 21st centuries loom large over the novel. Raja’s story demonstrates the devastating, direct impact that Lebanese corruption and ineptitude have had on the citizenry, showing how families are forced to rely on one another in the absence of real governmental support, and providing insight into the way that contemporary Lebanese citizens grapple with what it means to be from a dysfunctional state. Throughout the narrative, Raja’s experiences reflect the impact of history on individuals and communities.
The narrative depicts much of Lebanon’s civil war indirectly, choosing to instead capture the violence and cruelty of the conflict in microcosm through Raja’s captivity at Boodie’s hands. Raja is a quiet and peaceful person, while Boodie eagerly becomes a combatant, murders someone in cold blood in front of Raja, and then subjects Raja to months of enforced isolation and sexual abuse. Raja’s suffering as an individual thus reflects the violence and cruelty experienced by the Lebanese people as a whole during the conflict, with the explosion and sniper fire he hears from within the apartment serving as constant reminders of what is taking place on a larger scale outside.
The novel also highlights government corruption. The 2019 banking crisis robs Raja and almost everyone else in Lebanon of their life savings. Both Raja and Zalfa find that all of the money they have been carefully putting away for years is now gone due to governmental mismanagement. Raja remarks, “The country was in upheaval, demonstrations everywhere, unlike anything Lebanon had ever seen before. In every city, every town and every village, in Beirut, in Tripoli, in Nabatieh, people took to the streets to protest” (53). While the protests are ended by the pandemic’s commencement, the anger and despair the Lebanese people feel reveals how their government's corruption impacts them directly.
Lebanon’s corruption and governmental ineptitude also forces families to step in and help one another in ways that reveal how inefficient the government has become. The port explosion robs Nahed and Yasmine of their home, and they are forced to move in with Raja and Zalfa. Raja is angered that he should be expected to provide for relatives just because the Lebanese government paid so little attention to safety regulations, and becomes even angrier with the Lebanese assembly over their inept response to the crisis. The port explosion reshapes Raja’s sense of national identity. He has long known Lebanon to be a corrupt and poorly run state, but he is profoundly impacted by his walk to the blast site and, as he did during the banking crisis, experiences real grief.
Raja ultimately has to shift his focus toward the way that life as a Lebanese citizen has imbued him with strength and resiliency, and to do his best to see his community as truly valuable. The closing chapters, which show the community rallying around Raja after his mother’s death, demonstrate how Lebanese citizens continue to find ways to love and support one another in spite of the national problems they face.
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