Spanning nearly 40 years, Claire Hajaj's debut novel takes readers from the streets of Jaffa in Israel to England and back to Jaffa. Salim Al-Ishmaeli, a young Arab boy, witnesses firsthand the beginnings of the Palestinian-Israeli war as Jewish people begin to flood his neighborhood at the end of World War II. Due to the increasing violence, his family is forced to flee their beautiful home and orange grove, a place that haunts Salim throughout the book. In England, Salim meets Jude, a Jewish girl who struggles to accept her heritage. Despite the obvious problems inherent in their union, they fall in love. Their romance is sweet, particularly when juxtaposed against the increasing tension and anger seen in the streets of Salim's homeland.
When the couple and their two children move to Kuwait for Salim's new job, the underlying friction Salim and Jude have occasionally felt from their cultural differences increases, threatening to catch fire. It coincides with the increased violence in the world around them as war continues to rage on all sides. The couple must make difficult and dangerous choices based on their parental instincts and the pull of their respective heritages. Lyrical and evocative, Hajaj has skillfully captured the heat, dust and sounds of the Middle East and folded them into a rich amalgam of cultures and religious beliefs. Her story lingers long after the cover is closed, not with the question of whether the Jews or the Arabs threw the first stone, but which group will be the first to stop throwing them. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer