Too Soon

Playwright Shamieh’s debut novel tracks three generations of Palestinian American women through war, emigration, and the search for creative fulfillment. Arabella, an off-Broadway director in her mid-30s, has spent her career resisting her peers’ calls to protest Israel and represent Palestinian people in her work. She’s also been stymied in her attempts to land a prominent production, however, so when she’s offered the chance to direct a buzzy adaptation of Hamlet, to be staged in Ramallah, she accepts, rewriting the lead character as a woman named Hamleta. In the West Bank, she meets Aziz, the grandson of a man who was the object of her grandmother Zoya’s secret infatuation more than six decades earlier, before Zoya and her husband were forced to flee Jaffa during the 1948 displacement. Shamieh weaves together Arabella and Zoya’s stories, along with the coming-of-age of Arabella’s mother, Naya, the rebellious youngest daughter of Zoya. The novel’s rapid-fire resolutions feel somewhat jarring after the expansive storytelling. Better is the character work, as Shamieh ably portrays the distinguishing traits of each of her leads—Zoya’s aching desire for her lost homeland, Arabella’s snarky humor, and Naya’s mix of bravado and insecurity—as well as the ties that bind them, such as Arabella’s theater work and Zoya’s tendency to playact as a child during the British occupation. This rich saga upends received narratives about motherhood and migration. Agent: Mary Krienke, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Oct.)