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Zaher employs the coin, literally and metaphorically, to question human beings� essential properties. Through the unnamed Palestinian main character in New York, an influential global center, we consider the humans� substance, the reality underlying that displays accidents. How do we sort personal memories, socioeconomic class, gender, morality, ethnicity, nationality, and education into categories (Aristotelean and otherwise)? The Coin is abstract yet certainly also concrete and embodied. Zaher juxtaposes outrageous with more outrageous, captivating readers with the enigmatic woman’s adept improvisation and hubris.

Maybe I lie awake at night because our narrator’s OCD, expressed through routine cleaning, unexpectedly demands immediate imitation. Suddenly, I feel the impulse to shave. Or maybe I eat the bread of anxious toil because students involved with Palestinian activism face detainment and possible deportation. Or it’s both. I already know the The Coin will “[sit] there between the grooves.� I’m so glad it took Zaher 6 years to edit her debut (a trouble shared is a trouble halved), and I look forward to her next with excitement.