Bride of the Sea

November 16, 2020
Quotah’s alluring debut follows star-crossed Cleveland newlyweds Muneer and Saeedah through their brief marriage and its lengthy aftermath. In 1970, with a baby on the way and a lively extended family, a dark specter looms over the marriage of the two Saudi Arabian immigrants, as Muneer has doubts about the permanence of their union. Friends since childhood, the couple is inherently mismatched: Saeedah is outspoken and restless, clashing with Muneer’s staunch sense of calm and order. After six years of marriage, the two divorce, and Muneer returns to Saudi Arabia while Saeedah remains in Cleveland with their daughter, Hanadi, now five. Saeedah’s overprotectiveness of Hanadi and resentfulness toward Muneer spur her to disappear with their daughter, and Muneer spends years searching for his child. This estrangement and the inevitable, volatile father-daughter reunion when Hanadi is 17 cause rifts throughout Hanadi’s adult life as she attempts to reconcile with her painful past. The narrative’s delicacy belies the weight of its themes, and descriptions are etched with precision (Saeedah’s “nerves are elastic pulled tight”). Quotah’s resonant, neatly plotted outing will be a treat for readers who love fractured family dramas. Agent: Steven Chudney, the Chudney Agency.

November 15, 2020
In this family saga split between two continents, a young Saudi American woman grapples with her itinerant, mysterious childhood. It's 1970, and Muneer's relationship with his pregnant wife, Saeedah, is steadily deteriorating. He watches helplessly as she shovels snow in front of their Cleveland Heights, Ohio, rental house without wearing a coat or gloves and later walks into a freezing lake nearly naked. They have the baby--"The child will be OK, will be born beautiful and whole, will be named Hanadi"--but the couple gets divorced shortly after, and Muneer moves back to their hometown of Jidda, Saudi Arabia, while Saeedah and the baby stay in Ohio. Then, on Hanadi's fifth birthday, Saeedah takes the girl and vanishes. In sections that jump across decades and shift between Muneer's, Hanadi's, and Saeedah's perspectives, debut author Quotah gracefully charts the way this decision overturns the three family members' lives. Muneer spends the next 12 years searching for his daughter with the help of a private investigator hired by his father-in-law, even as he works at a newspaper in Jidda, remarries, and has more children. Hanadi grows up longing for her father as she and Saeedah move around, from Toledo to San Francisco, while Saeedah works odd jobs under assumed names and flees whenever she notices anyone watching too closely. Eventually, when Hanadi--or Hannah, as she's now called--is 17, Muneer tracks her down. As she travels to Jidda to meet her relatives, she must navigate both her joy at discovering a family she didn't know she had ("to have dozens of people feels like a gift, a gift of love that she never expected") and resentment toward her mother for a lifetime of lies. Saeedah's side of the story, in many ways the most intriguing, is also the most shadowy, and one wishes it were more fleshed out. But Quotah, born in Jidda to an American mother and Saudi father, depicts Saudi culture in engrossing detail, from fruit-scented shisha smoke to traditional wedding customs: "their relatives refuse to allow musical instruments at weddings--no lute, no dancing, no 'Ya Layla Dana, ' no stereo, no songs by Amr Diab or Ragheb Alama. Only drumming and human voices, songs about God and the Prophet." A rich, finely rendered novel.

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Starred review from November 1, 2020
First-novelist Quotah offers a gripping story about a family split between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Saeedah and Muneer, living in Cleveland as newlywed university students, drift apart even as they deal with a pregnancy and early parenthood. Following the divorce, Muneer moves back to Jidda; Saeedah, fearing her daughter may be taken from her, chooses to run away with Hanadi and feels forced to live a nomadic life in the U.S. The impact of this choice on these three lives and the way it affects the extended family dynamics is central in Quotah's novel spanning four decades, even as she weaves in the reality of immigrant lives, offers thoughtful observations about religious identity, and provides vignettes of Saudi culture. Muneer's yearning to meet his lost daughter, Saeedah's sense of fear about losing herself and her daughter, and Hanadi become Hannah's coming to terms with the emotional roller coaster of her childhood are all captured with emotional urgency. Geopolitics is integral to the story, serving as a backdrop for all the developments. Quotah's deft characterization and pacing, combined with an inside look at Saudi Arabian life, make this debut a compelling and worthy read.

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