Read: Eight Months on Ghazzah Street

December 7, 2009

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel
Source: Library

“Anyway,” Andrew said, as they pulled up outside Dunroamin, “why don’t you give it a go? Once you get down to it you’d probably be really good at making Christmas crackers.”

“I  know,” she said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Frances Shore isn’t your typical expat wife. A cartographer by profession, she finds herself in Saudi Arabia after her husband moves there for work. In the Middle East, unlike her previous situation in Botswana which she cannot help but make comparisons to, she’s jobless, friendless, viewless (her flat’s windows look out onto blank walls, her front door had even been bricked up by its previous occupants, to prevent the wife from going out into the hall). She disdains the company of the other expat wives, many of whom live in compounds and do crafty things and enjoy shopping. Instead she befriends her Pakistani neighbour Yasmin and her Saudi neighbour Samira. But there’s something odd going up in the flat upstairs – Frances hears sobs and sees shadows of people on the stairwell. Everyone tells her it is nothing, but she’s not quite so sure.

“Curiosity is a transient phenomenon here. It is not that you learn everything; but you soon learn whatever you will be allowed to know. This is a private society, which does not publish its flaws, or disclose its reasoning, which replies to pressing inquiries with a floodtide of disinformation, and then reverts to its preferred silence. One door closes, and – while you are gathering your platitudes – another door slams shut.”

Mantel, who lived in Saudi Arabia for four years with her geologist husband, is obviously familiar with the Middle East.  While the book naturally touches on the treatment of Saudi women, it also brings to light the rather interestingsituation of expat wives in the Middle East, from the eyes of this intelligent, worldly woman.

Before I read this book, I wasn’t quite sure if I had read anything by Hilary Mantel before – I remember picking up Beyond Black a few times, but I wasn’t sure if I had actually read it (note to self: pick it up at my next library visit!). But after reading Eight Months in Ghazzah Street, I am now quite sure that I haven’t read Mantel’s books before, because if I had, I’d have definitely gone on and read everything this woman’s written! This was such an absorbing and completely, amazingly written book. It was a little creepy, yet so firmly set in reality. Mantel is clearly a genius at the building up of tension. A great read.

I first learnt of this book on Kimbofo’s blog Reading Matters, where she’s written a far better review.

This is my fourth (and first fiction) read for the Women Unbound Challenge.

Written by olduvai Posted in Reading, Reading Challenges, women unbound