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Yasmin Zaher’s a Palestinian journalist based in Paris. Her debut novel grew out of her time studying in the U.S. It’s set in 2016, narrated by a young, nameless Palestinian woman who’s recently relocated to New York. Although she’s taken a job in a school, her lifestyle’s largely funded by family money, an inheritance stemming from her parents� death in a car accident during her childhood. The woman lives in a state of constant vigilance, rigorously policing herself: her environment and her body. She dresses in understated but obviously high-end fashion from Stella McCartney to McQueen. Clothing that partly acts to establish an identity but also forms a kind of protective armour. Although what she’s protecting herself against is unclear. She’s queer, essentially isolated but maintains a desultory bond with wealthy developer Sasha. However, the narrator’s stated desire for detachment, to focus only on her own pleasure, is challenged by her growing affection for her pupils � all boys, mostly Black American, some immigrants, all poor or otherwise marginalised. A group on which she tests out her theories about morality, her conception of how to survive and thrive in an intrinsically corrupt society.

The narrator appears to have succumbed to contemporary capitalism’s dictates, fully invested in consumer culture, flaunting an array of positional goods. In New York her ownership of a Birkin bag marks her out as successful, enviable even. A symbol that possibly overrides her status as ‘other� in a place where she’s more conscious of the colour of her skin than ever before. It’s clear that here in New York social status resides in how you’re perceived. The Birkin’s especially significant because of its aura of exclusivity, a product deliberately made scarce: ownership not only subject to long waiting lists but to customers proving themselves worthy of the brand. A hierarchy of value that the narrator clearly comprehends: it seems telling that her encounter with a stylish, homeless man, she dubs Trenchcoat, is directly tied to her discarded Burberry raincoat � Burberry of course a brand devalued by its excessive popularity during the late 1990s, still desperate to reinstate its former cachet.

But this outward show of monied sophistication is undermined by the narrator’s private domestic routines. She resorts to increasingly-complicated cleansing rituals, moving from on-trend Korean beauty regimes to brutally scrubbing every inch of her body and her apartment. She’s obsessed with removing the filth and stench of the city, a possible rejection of its culture and values. But she also seems to view herself as defiled. A fixation which partly connects to her past. This past has invaded her body, inside, unreachable, is a coin swallowed during the accident that killed her mother and father. The coin’s a shekel � Israeli currency � yet also a British pound, simultaneously signifying internalised oppression, trauma, the legacy of racism and colonialism. But tied to capitalism too, with its emphasis on the commodification of the self. The narrator’s feeling that she’s both polluted and polluting are intensified by her gender - circulating notions of women as inherently impure. Their acceptability connected to an ability to keep a “clean� house and a “clean� body; rewarded for removing the evidence of their embodiment, their potential “animality,� shaved, plucked, and deodorised. As a woman of colour, the narrator’s growing self-disgust is intensified by living in a country where whiteness signifies virtue, and colourism runs rampant.

Zaher’s narrative’s strongly influenced by Clarice Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H. Zaher’s themes and preoccupations overlap with Lispector’s particularly her emphasis on masking, loss of authentic selfhood, experiences of displacement and exile. Although Zaher’s novel more accessible than Lispector’s, despite its ambiguities and surreal qualities it’s frequently more reminiscent of the work of writers like Mona Awad and Otessa Moshfegh. In addition, Zaher’s incorporated autobiographical elements, her narrator’s childhood memories of her grandmother replicate Zaher’s own; the narrator’s critique of American society, the shock of its contradictions, its inequalities, its insularity, echo Zaher’s impressions.

As her story unfolds, recounted to an unnamed presence, the narrator slowly unravels. A chance betrayal results in her retreat from the outside world. A retreat that resembles a kind of cathartic, personalised performance art. An attempt to revert to a state of nature, to reclaim her history and her inner self. It’s an intriguing progression but it also felt oddly conventional, contradictory � in danger of reinstating the individualistic underpinnings of the system it’s meant to counter. Like many first novels it’s undoubtedly flawed, slightly unbalanced, sagging in places, but it was frequently arresting, often relatable, and highly readable.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Footnote for an ARC

Rating: 3.5