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The True True Story of Raja the Gullible
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
“Alameddine is a writer with a boundless imagination.”—NPR
From the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction comes a tragicomic love story set in Lebanon, a modern saga of family, memory, and the unbreakable attachment of a son and his mother
In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and “the neighborhood homosexual,” Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son’s desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja’s work life and love life, boundaries be damned.
When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn’t be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget.
Told in Raja’s irresistible and wickedly funny voice, the novel dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities—a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love.
“Alameddine is a writer with a boundless imagination.”—NPR
From the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction comes a tragicomic love story set in Lebanon, a modern saga of family, memory, and the unbreakable attachment of a son and his mother
In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and “the neighborhood homosexual,” Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son’s desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja’s work life and love life, boundaries be damned.
When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn’t be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget.
Told in Raja’s irresistible and wickedly funny voice, the novel dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities—a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love.
282 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 2, 2025
929 people are currently reading
20517 people want to read
About the author
Rabih Alameddine
25 books945 followersRabih Alameddine (Arabic: ربيع علم الدين; born 1959) is an American painter and writer. His 2021 novel The Wrong End of the Telescope won the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Alameddine was born in Amman, Jordan to Lebanese Druze parents. He grew up in Kuwait and Lebanon, which he left at age 17 to live first in England and then in California to pursue higher education. He earned a degree in engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Master of Business in San Francisco.
Alameddine began his career as an engineer, then moved to writing and painting. His debut novel Koolaids, which touched on both the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco and the Lebanese Civil War, was published in 1998 by Picador.
The author of six novels and a collection of short stories, Alameddine was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002. His queer sensibility has added a different slant to narratives about immigrants within the context of what became known as Orientalism.
In 2014, Alameddine was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and he won the California Book Awards Gold Medal Fiction for An Unnecessary Woman.
Alameddine is best known for this novel, which tells the story of Aaliya, a Lebanese woman and translator living in war-torn Lebanon. The novel "manifests traumatic signposts of the [Lebanese] civil war, which make it indelibly situational, and accordingly latches onto complex psychological issues."
In 2017, Alameddine won the Arab American Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction for The Angel of History.
In 2018 he was teaching in the University of Virginia's creative writing program, in Charlottesville.
He was shortlisted for the 2021 Sunday Times Short Story Award for his story, "The July War".
His novel The Wrong End of the Telescope won the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Alameddine was born in Amman, Jordan to Lebanese Druze parents. He grew up in Kuwait and Lebanon, which he left at age 17 to live first in England and then in California to pursue higher education. He earned a degree in engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Master of Business in San Francisco.
Alameddine began his career as an engineer, then moved to writing and painting. His debut novel Koolaids, which touched on both the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco and the Lebanese Civil War, was published in 1998 by Picador.
The author of six novels and a collection of short stories, Alameddine was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002. His queer sensibility has added a different slant to narratives about immigrants within the context of what became known as Orientalism.
In 2014, Alameddine was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and he won the California Book Awards Gold Medal Fiction for An Unnecessary Woman.
Alameddine is best known for this novel, which tells the story of Aaliya, a Lebanese woman and translator living in war-torn Lebanon. The novel "manifests traumatic signposts of the [Lebanese] civil war, which make it indelibly situational, and accordingly latches onto complex psychological issues."
In 2017, Alameddine won the Arab American Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction for The Angel of History.
In 2018 he was teaching in the University of Virginia's creative writing program, in Charlottesville.
He was shortlisted for the 2021 Sunday Times Short Story Award for his story, "The July War".
His novel The Wrong End of the Telescope won the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 418 reviews
November 21, 2025
Update 2 : It won. Congratulations.
Update : Now a finalist for 2025 National Book Award for Fiction
Sometimes it just happens. After Young Munro, I read another novel about the relationship between a mother and her gay son in Lebanon, another place that is often unfriendly toward LGBT people. However, the tone was completely different, which goes to show how important it is to have a family that supports you, no matter where you are in the world. This book is funny and warm despite Lebanon’s troubled history that the characters must live through. Still, I think the story feels too casual and lacks a strong central conflict, even though it is full of smaller conflicts.
Update : Now a finalist for 2025 National Book Award for Fiction
Sometimes it just happens. After Young Munro, I read another novel about the relationship between a mother and her gay son in Lebanon, another place that is often unfriendly toward LGBT people. However, the tone was completely different, which goes to show how important it is to have a family that supports you, no matter where you are in the world. This book is funny and warm despite Lebanon’s troubled history that the characters must live through. Still, I think the story feels too casual and lacks a strong central conflict, even though it is full of smaller conflicts.
October 15, 2025
Alameddine weaves a story about two people, mother and son and how they live as separate from each other but how their lives are intertwined with each other’s, because they care, they love, and they stand up to be counted.
Our main hero is yes grumpy and long-suffering Raja, but he is also honourable, caring and loving. On the other side we have his mother, quite ferocious in her love. They may see the world and life from different perspectives, but their bond is solid.
So, despite heartbreak, civil war, neighbourly bombings and military incursions, economic collapse, exploding harbours and a worldwide pandemic; the care and decency rise up, if life continues, they continue, step after step, lipstick after lipstick.................
An ARC kindly provided by author/publisher via Netgalley - Edelweiss.
Our main hero is yes grumpy and long-suffering Raja, but he is also honourable, caring and loving. On the other side we have his mother, quite ferocious in her love. They may see the world and life from different perspectives, but their bond is solid.
So, despite heartbreak, civil war, neighbourly bombings and military incursions, economic collapse, exploding harbours and a worldwide pandemic; the care and decency rise up, if life continues, they continue, step after step, lipstick after lipstick.................
An ARC kindly provided by author/publisher via Netgalley - Edelweiss.
November 20, 2025
This novel reads like a memoir told by Raja, a queer sixty-three-year-old philosophy teacher living in Lebanon. He’s beloved by his “brats,” as he affectionately calls his students, and lives with his fiery, foul-mouthed, and endlessly inquisitive mother, Zalfa. Through Raja’s perspective, we witness Lebanon’s turbulent history — from the civil war and its bombings to the financial collapse, COVID, and the 2020 Beirut port explosion. He filters these tragedies through humor, turning pain into a kind of tragicomedy. At times, the wit feels almost too light for the darkness beneath, but that contrast is what makes the story so compelling and gives it that emotional pull.
This was my first book by Rabih Alameddine, and I was hooked right away. Raja’s relationship with his mother is both funny and suffocating — their back-and-forth feels lived-in, even when it’s exhausting. Zalfa doesn’t always understand boundaries or her son’s need for space. But there is true affection here.
I loved Raja’s self-deprecating humor, his way of laughing at life even when there’s little to laugh about. It’s a survival tool, shaped by decades of political unrest, personal loss and tragedy, and a country in chaos. His coming-of-age during the civil war affected him in ways he’s still trying to unpack decades later.
Raja tends to ramble a bit — as many sixty-somethings reflecting on their lives tend to do — and he occasionally breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the reader (“If you remember history, you’ll know…”). But I found that part of his charm. The writing is clever, the voice unforgettable, and the mother-son dynamic one I won’t soon forget.
Winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction
This was my first book by Rabih Alameddine, and I was hooked right away. Raja’s relationship with his mother is both funny and suffocating — their back-and-forth feels lived-in, even when it’s exhausting. Zalfa doesn’t always understand boundaries or her son’s need for space. But there is true affection here.
I loved Raja’s self-deprecating humor, his way of laughing at life even when there’s little to laugh about. It’s a survival tool, shaped by decades of political unrest, personal loss and tragedy, and a country in chaos. His coming-of-age during the civil war affected him in ways he’s still trying to unpack decades later.
Raja tends to ramble a bit — as many sixty-somethings reflecting on their lives tend to do — and he occasionally breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the reader (“If you remember history, you’ll know…”). But I found that part of his charm. The writing is clever, the voice unforgettable, and the mother-son dynamic one I won’t soon forget.
Winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction
October 3, 2025
An Unnecessary Woman by this author is on my all time favorites list, so I had high hopes for this one, but it didn't deliver in the same way. It was funny and witty and informative about the mess that has been Lebanon, but it bogged down for a major part of the middle portion for me.
I will say that Raja is not the true hero of this novel. His mother is, even though she just gets parentheses in the title.
I will say that Raja is not the true hero of this novel. His mother is, even though she just gets parentheses in the title.
December 7, 2025
An award-winning tragicomedy that follows Raja, a 63-year-old gay philosophy teacher who lives in Lebanon with his mother, Zalfa. Raja prefers solitude and his own space, and his mother is a loquacious woman who prefers company.
The story unfolds backwards, with Raja talking about his life shaped by living through turbulent times in Lebanon, from the civil war to the COVID-19 pandemic to the 2020 Beirut explosion, and reads like a love/loath letter to his mother and to Lebanon. It is a playful and thought-provoking narrative, simultaneously amusing and heartbreaking, and it mostly works.
The erratic jumping around of timelines brings down what should have been a compelling narrative. While the story tries to balance the humorous and the serious, it fails to follow any real character-shaping arc. I feel like both Raja and Zalfa remained the same as they were when introduced. I liked it because it manages to show the affection between the two, and creates such an interesting character out of Zalfa, but the plot felt a plodding drama even when it pretended to be a grave situation.
A mildly interesting read, recommended if you like quirky literary fiction about queer characters and mother-son relationships, on the lower end of 3.5 stars for me.
The story unfolds backwards, with Raja talking about his life shaped by living through turbulent times in Lebanon, from the civil war to the COVID-19 pandemic to the 2020 Beirut explosion, and reads like a love/loath letter to his mother and to Lebanon. It is a playful and thought-provoking narrative, simultaneously amusing and heartbreaking, and it mostly works.
The erratic jumping around of timelines brings down what should have been a compelling narrative. While the story tries to balance the humorous and the serious, it fails to follow any real character-shaping arc. I feel like both Raja and Zalfa remained the same as they were when introduced. I liked it because it manages to show the affection between the two, and creates such an interesting character out of Zalfa, but the plot felt a plodding drama even when it pretended to be a grave situation.
A mildly interesting read, recommended if you like quirky literary fiction about queer characters and mother-son relationships, on the lower end of 3.5 stars for me.
November 30, 2025
This book is most unusual. It tells the story of 63 year old Raja and his 82 year old mother, Zalfa. They live in Beirut, Lebanon, sharing a tiny apartment. Raja teaches Philosophy to high school students, whom he affectionately refers to as his "brats." His mother has come to live with him recently and butts into all aspects of his life. As interfering as Zalfa is, she is often right. There is love underneath all of their interactions. And, humor too.
As Raja says, "In the end, we were able to live together because we both understood that if we did what she wanted, we would both be happier."
The story plays out among the historical events besetting Lebanon: Civil War, Israeli shelling, the Port Explosion, and COVID.
The plot encompasses a long drawn-out episode of Raja being kidnapped at age 16. His captor is an 18 year old male (Boody), who attends Raja's school.
My Reactions:
I loved the first quarter of the novel before Raja was kidnapped. It was both poignant and humorous. The middle part of the novel featuring his kidnapping wore on me. The whole situation felt ludicrous. And later, Raja's traveling to Virginia for a writer's residency seemed just as far-fetched and not funny. The novel was not able to regain its earlier appeal for me.
Here is an NPR interview with the author. https://www.kasu.org/education-and-co...
*The novel has won the 2025 National Book Award.
As Raja says, "In the end, we were able to live together because we both understood that if we did what she wanted, we would both be happier."
The story plays out among the historical events besetting Lebanon: Civil War, Israeli shelling, the Port Explosion, and COVID.
The plot encompasses a long drawn-out episode of Raja being kidnapped at age 16. His captor is an 18 year old male (Boody), who attends Raja's school.
My Reactions:
I loved the first quarter of the novel before Raja was kidnapped. It was both poignant and humorous. The middle part of the novel featuring his kidnapping wore on me. The whole situation felt ludicrous. And later, Raja's traveling to Virginia for a writer's residency seemed just as far-fetched and not funny. The novel was not able to regain its earlier appeal for me.
Here is an NPR interview with the author. https://www.kasu.org/education-and-co...
*The novel has won the 2025 National Book Award.
December 3, 2025
Nemili događaji dolaze u trojkama. Primera radi, pregorevanje sijalice ili curenje slavine najverovatnije će ispratiti upokojenje jednog ili više kućnih aparata. Na premisi rasklimanog tronošca istorijskih nemani - Građanskog rata i problemi sa, gle čuda, Izraelom, Svetske finansijske krize i Velike eksplozije skladišta amonijum nitrata- Rabi Alamedin slika povest Bejruta sa uporednim prikazom načina opstanka jedne porodice koja je, silom prilika i sama po sebi, savršeno krnja i (ne)obična.
Glavni junaci, Radža i njegova neukrotiva majka ponovo su, nakon dugog niza godina, primorani da dele mali životni prostor. On je na pragu trećeg doba a ona duboko i vitalno u devetoj deceniji.
Džangrizavi profesor filozofije, ljubitelj umetnosti, samoće i tišine, dežurni homoseksulac svog kvarta, ponekad veliki mudrac, često velika i lakoverna budala, čiji mikrokosmos se opet sudara sa meteorskom kišom žene, čija ličnost privlači sve oko sebe, koja ne poznaje, niti priznaje, granice privatnosti, koja voli svoju decu jednako, a neku jednakije.
"The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and his mother)", ovogodišnji dobitnik " National Book Award" za beletristiku, beleži šest decenija grada, države i građana, kojima je neizvesnost jedina izvesnost. Kroz priče onih koji nisu pobegli i čija uloga ostaje da popune praznine, prikazano je kreiranje ličnog brenda normalnog načina života i izgradnje identiteta, dok bombe i snajperi večito vrebaju u pozadini.
Rabi Alamedin stvara narativno tkanje gde su šare tradicije, humora, pasivne agresije i sukoba, uklopljene u riskantnu kompoziciju koja bi se za manje umešnog pisca pokazala kao preveliki zalogaj. Ovde pak sve dolazi na svoje mesto. Sin zauvek ostaje dete, majka zauvek roditelj a komad života, takvog kakav vam je dat i dozvoljen, ostaje najveće porodično nasledstvo, jednako oblikovani greškama predaka koliko i vašim nesupehom. Ali ako imate sreće i ljubavi, sentimenlnost sa samog kraja ovog romana neće vam biti zamerka, već trenutak za poželeti.
Glavni junaci, Radža i njegova neukrotiva majka ponovo su, nakon dugog niza godina, primorani da dele mali životni prostor. On je na pragu trećeg doba a ona duboko i vitalno u devetoj deceniji.
Džangrizavi profesor filozofije, ljubitelj umetnosti, samoće i tišine, dežurni homoseksulac svog kvarta, ponekad veliki mudrac, često velika i lakoverna budala, čiji mikrokosmos se opet sudara sa meteorskom kišom žene, čija ličnost privlači sve oko sebe, koja ne poznaje, niti priznaje, granice privatnosti, koja voli svoju decu jednako, a neku jednakije.
"The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and his mother)", ovogodišnji dobitnik " National Book Award" za beletristiku, beleži šest decenija grada, države i građana, kojima je neizvesnost jedina izvesnost. Kroz priče onih koji nisu pobegli i čija uloga ostaje da popune praznine, prikazano je kreiranje ličnog brenda normalnog načina života i izgradnje identiteta, dok bombe i snajperi večito vrebaju u pozadini.
Rabi Alamedin stvara narativno tkanje gde su šare tradicije, humora, pasivne agresije i sukoba, uklopljene u riskantnu kompoziciju koja bi se za manje umešnog pisca pokazala kao preveliki zalogaj. Ovde pak sve dolazi na svoje mesto. Sin zauvek ostaje dete, majka zauvek roditelj a komad života, takvog kakav vam je dat i dozvoljen, ostaje najveće porodično nasledstvo, jednako oblikovani greškama predaka koliko i vašim nesupehom. Ali ako imate sreće i ljubavi, sentimenlnost sa samog kraja ovog romana neće vam biti zamerka, već trenutak za poželeti.
September 10, 2025
I went into this book not knowing what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised by this charming book. For covering some very traumatic themes like kidnapping, rape, and Stockholm syndrome during the Lebanese civl war, this was a surprisingly cozy and pleasantly meandering tale about a gay man and his eccentric but lovable mother. I haven't read anything quite like it, but The Emperor of Gladness comes close with similar vibes. This one just has a meatier plot.
Raja, 63, a schoolteacher, lives with his 80-year-old mother, Zarfa, after his philandering brother swindled her out of her savings. Raja is a neurotic introvert and perpetually single, highly ethical when it comes to his students. His charming mother soon tramples all over his boundaries, becoming friends with his students, attending demonstrations, and befriending the local mob queen.
The story jumps between the past and present in somewhat muddled timelines but ever-present is Zarfa's fierce love for her misunderstood son, starting from when he was held captive by a militia man who raped him for months, and he came home inseperable from a mangy feral cat. His homophobic brother and father wanted the cat out of the house, but his mother moves out of her husband's room so he can keep the cat. I was charmed by how overprotective she was of her son.
The book also shows the mundane normality of every day life and family dramas while they are living in Beirut and the country is being torn apart by fascists who raided the banks. But the war becomes background noise as this tight-knit, boisterous family lives their life in the intimate day by day. I loved that about this book and it is so true when a country is going through turmoil. You still have to go to work, feed the cats and fight with your mother. The contrast is jarring.
This book was full of charming, colorful little details like the giant table Raja had to have from his childhood home before it was sold due to his brother's negligence. The way Zarfa rallied together the community almost without Raja knowing it due to his extreme introversion was charming and inspiring.
This was definitely not a romance, but it was a love story all the same, the love of mothers and sons.
What a privilege to be able to read this beautiful book.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Raja, 63, a schoolteacher, lives with his 80-year-old mother, Zarfa, after his philandering brother swindled her out of her savings. Raja is a neurotic introvert and perpetually single, highly ethical when it comes to his students. His charming mother soon tramples all over his boundaries, becoming friends with his students, attending demonstrations, and befriending the local mob queen.
The story jumps between the past and present in somewhat muddled timelines but ever-present is Zarfa's fierce love for her misunderstood son, starting from when he was held captive by a militia man who raped him for months, and he came home inseperable from a mangy feral cat. His homophobic brother and father wanted the cat out of the house, but his mother moves out of her husband's room so he can keep the cat. I was charmed by how overprotective she was of her son.
The book also shows the mundane normality of every day life and family dramas while they are living in Beirut and the country is being torn apart by fascists who raided the banks. But the war becomes background noise as this tight-knit, boisterous family lives their life in the intimate day by day. I loved that about this book and it is so true when a country is going through turmoil. You still have to go to work, feed the cats and fight with your mother. The contrast is jarring.
This book was full of charming, colorful little details like the giant table Raja had to have from his childhood home before it was sold due to his brother's negligence. The way Zarfa rallied together the community almost without Raja knowing it due to his extreme introversion was charming and inspiring.
This was definitely not a romance, but it was a love story all the same, the love of mothers and sons.
What a privilege to be able to read this beautiful book.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
August 29, 2025
Raja is a 60+ professor who, reluctantly, lives with his octogenarian mother in Beirut. He receives an invitation to teach in the USA completely out of the blue. But to get to what happened when he went we first have to discover Raja's history (and that of his mother).
I loved this book. Raja's history is fascinating, surprising and very funny. He is a gay man growing up in a country where homosexuality was illegal until 2018 this he tries to keep it a secret from his family. This is pointless because everyone knows. They just don't want anyone else finding out.
There are so many wonderful parts to this story. Raja's alliance with his mother; his mother's personality itself and her ability to make friends with gangsters, pupils and strangers; the wars that raged in Beirut throughout Raja's lifetime; the effects of Covid and the massive dock explosion in 2020; Raja's relationship with his wider family, his friends and his pupils.
A substantial part of the book describes Raja's crazy experiences during the civil war and its aftermath.
This book is about family, acceptance and living in a volatile country. But mainly it is about the characters of Raja and his mother. Yes, he's definitely gullible and his mother is a force of nature. It's worth reading just for this relationship alone but there's so much more packed in here.
Loved it and I really want to read more by this author. Read it. You can thank me later.
Thankyou very much to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.
I loved this book. Raja's history is fascinating, surprising and very funny. He is a gay man growing up in a country where homosexuality was illegal until 2018 this he tries to keep it a secret from his family. This is pointless because everyone knows. They just don't want anyone else finding out.
There are so many wonderful parts to this story. Raja's alliance with his mother; his mother's personality itself and her ability to make friends with gangsters, pupils and strangers; the wars that raged in Beirut throughout Raja's lifetime; the effects of Covid and the massive dock explosion in 2020; Raja's relationship with his wider family, his friends and his pupils.
A substantial part of the book describes Raja's crazy experiences during the civil war and its aftermath.
This book is about family, acceptance and living in a volatile country. But mainly it is about the characters of Raja and his mother. Yes, he's definitely gullible and his mother is a force of nature. It's worth reading just for this relationship alone but there's so much more packed in here.
Loved it and I really want to read more by this author. Read it. You can thank me later.
Thankyou very much to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.
December 2, 2025
When I started this novel, I did not initially remember that I had read something else by this author but then realized I had read The Wrong End of the Telescope. This novel recently won the 2025 National Book Award.
The characters in this novel are brilliant: Raja and his mother, Zalfa, Raja’s cousin, Nahed, and Zalfa’s best friend, Madame Taweel. The relationship between Raja and his mother is tumultuous, filled with angry words and tirades, but you always know there is a strong love between them. I could not count how often they called each other stupid, but then they always took steps to repair any damage done. I loved one expression they used regularly in their shouting matches that may be unique to the Lebanese, but I don’t feel I should repeat it here; I don’t want to offend anyone.
There were some aspects of the story that did not ring true: at times I had difficulty reconciling Raja’s statements with his actions. Some of the discrepancies are explained in the final chapters of the book, and some of them may have been intended as testimony to the unpredictability of passion and love. My lasting impression, though, was of a good story, which provided insight into Lebanon and the Lebanese, and characters who captured my attention, especially Zalfa.
The characters in this novel are brilliant: Raja and his mother, Zalfa, Raja’s cousin, Nahed, and Zalfa’s best friend, Madame Taweel. The relationship between Raja and his mother is tumultuous, filled with angry words and tirades, but you always know there is a strong love between them. I could not count how often they called each other stupid, but then they always took steps to repair any damage done. I loved one expression they used regularly in their shouting matches that may be unique to the Lebanese, but I don’t feel I should repeat it here; I don’t want to offend anyone.
There were some aspects of the story that did not ring true: at times I had difficulty reconciling Raja’s statements with his actions. Some of the discrepancies are explained in the final chapters of the book, and some of them may have been intended as testimony to the unpredictability of passion and love. My lasting impression, though, was of a good story, which provided insight into Lebanon and the Lebanese, and characters who captured my attention, especially Zalfa.
November 23, 2025
**2025 National Book Award Winner for Fiction** Congratulations to Rabih Alameddine!
A tragicomedy set in Beirut, Lebanon, a nation torn by war. Raja's story reads like a memoir as he remembers some of the best and worst days of his life. He was born the second of two sons to well-to-do parents. He is short and effeminate and so could never live up to his older brother's big exploits, to the disgust of his father. Now a grown man in his 60s and a beloved teacher of philosophy, he recounts his life and the events and people that shaped it, most especially his charismatic and controlling mother, Zalfa. Such a unique cast of characters--loving, gossipy, intrusive and often foul-mouthed, but at the same time, supportive and courageous. A great read depicting life in Beirut during those turbulent years.
A tragicomedy set in Beirut, Lebanon, a nation torn by war. Raja's story reads like a memoir as he remembers some of the best and worst days of his life. He was born the second of two sons to well-to-do parents. He is short and effeminate and so could never live up to his older brother's big exploits, to the disgust of his father. Now a grown man in his 60s and a beloved teacher of philosophy, he recounts his life and the events and people that shaped it, most especially his charismatic and controlling mother, Zalfa. Such a unique cast of characters--loving, gossipy, intrusive and often foul-mouthed, but at the same time, supportive and courageous. A great read depicting life in Beirut during those turbulent years.
November 20, 2025
** 2025 National Book Award Winner for Fiction **
This is my second novel by Alameddine, and I really enjoyed it. He writes such memorable and authentic characters! I loved the narrator Raja, his irrepressible octogenarian mother Zalfa, and her faithful gangster sidekick Madame Taweel. I felt as though they were people I actually knew and I was sorry to part with them.
The only flaw for me in the book was the character, Boodi. His story arc with Raja was a bit surreal and Boodi’s last appearance in the book seemed like a hiccup that was never really resolved or explained.
Regardless, a very entertaining story.
This is my second novel by Alameddine, and I really enjoyed it. He writes such memorable and authentic characters! I loved the narrator Raja, his irrepressible octogenarian mother Zalfa, and her faithful gangster sidekick Madame Taweel. I felt as though they were people I actually knew and I was sorry to part with them.
The only flaw for me in the book was the character, Boodi. His story arc with Raja was a bit surreal and Boodi’s last appearance in the book seemed like a hiccup that was never really resolved or explained.
Regardless, a very entertaining story.
September 8, 2025
This is one of those rare novels that lives up to—and perhaps beyond—its promo material. Yes, it "dances across six decades," recounts "a singular life and its absurdities," and "is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love." And the novel accomplishes all this while remaining a treacle-free space. Raja's mix of bitterness, self-mockery, and loving connections to others (though sometimes bitterly loving) ultimately comes across as charming in a sort of irritating way (but no treacle, seriously).
The novel serves as a wonderful reminder that love and resentment can exist alongside and even strengthen one another. It also shows us that one of the ways we love is through resistance.
Read it.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Net Galley; the opinions are my own.
The novel serves as a wonderful reminder that love and resentment can exist alongside and even strengthen one another. It also shows us that one of the ways we love is through resistance.
Read it.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Net Galley; the opinions are my own.
December 18, 2025
Raja keeps falling for every shiny trap life sets for him the way a gullible bird keeps flying into glass. He moves through the world with innocent confidence. He also carries a lifelong addiction: his mother. Zalfa. A woman who could weaponize a sigh, turn a compliment into a duel, and reshape the mood of an entire household with one raised eyebrow. She's the patron saint of backhanded affection.
The novel zigzags between present and past, a sort of family scrapbook where someone spilled coffee, tears, and a few drops of self respect. In the present, Raja cares for Zalfa in Beirut. He dyes her hair, fetches her snacks, and listens to her insult him with maternal devotion. Their life together is a domestic circus that runs on caffeine, nostalgia, and mutual emotional blackmail. It is affectionate and ridiculous. They adore each other with the fierce loyalty of two people stuck in the same elevator for decades.
Then the book dives into the long history of how Raja reached this point. Flashbacks cover everything from his accidental literary career to the country collapsing around him. The banks vanish his savings. The government steals whatever the banks forgot to pocket. The economy performs a disappearing act so complete it deserves a standing ovation. Raja keeps teaching bored students French philosophy while his mother keeps treating loneliness like a personal insult.
And hovering in the middle of all this is the true epic: Zalfa versus the world. Her failed escape to Dubai with the worlds most useless son. Her humiliations in a shiny desert apartment where even the wooden beams in the ceiling act like a bad joke. Her triumphant return to Beirut, where Raja rescues her with the grim determination of a man who knows he will never get his apartment back to himself again.
He rants about her stubbornness while rearranging his life around her whims. She mocks him without mercy while protecting him with the fury of a mythic creature. They fuss, fight, eat, argue, insult, reminisce, panic, reorganize furniture, mourn, celebrate small victories, and generally behave like two people who would not survive without each other yet would never say that out loud.
The plot keeps expanding into stories of war, migration, family betrayals, losses, and personal disasters that somehow land on their feet looking like comedy. His brother takes advantage of everyone. His father leaves memories the way tourists leave trash. The country keeps shaking, breaking, rebuilding, then breaking again. Through it all, Raja clings to books, sarcasm, and the immense family table that serves as both heirloom and hazard. That table becomes the perfect metaphor for their entire lineage: enormous, burdensome, impossible, precious, and permanently in the way.
The book considers love that arrives dressed in irritation, grief disguised as routine, and identity formed from the scraps left after other people finish feeding. It offers a sharp portrait of a city that punishes its people and a family that keeps trying to grow something humane in the cracks.
This is a story about the slow comedy of living with people you did not choose yet could never replace. It is about the mother who calls you an idiot while feeding you, and the son who pretends to hate every minute of it while cutting her fruit just the way she likes.
The whole project pretends to be casual, but underneath the jokes it carries a freight of regret, affection, and political exhaustion that hits harder than the book ever admits. It is clever without being smug, sorrowful without melodrama, and rooted in lived detail.
Raja is a mess of contradictions that feel human rather than theatrical. He is insecure but proud. He is gullible but perceptive. He is resentful but hopelessly loyal. His mother is both anchor and storm. The book keeps toggling between comedy and grief, and somehow that rhythm becomes its emotional signature.
There is also a larger message about Lebanon itself, the way political collapse turns every citizen into a reluctant archivist. Raja keeps remembering because the country keeps forgetting, and memory becomes both burden and duty.
The sex scenes function as markers of longing, fading desire, awkwardness, and the unhappy comedy of aging. The scenes reveal Raja's internal life far better than any philosophical aside could. The sexual moments act like diagnostic tests. They show where the characters carry shame, pride, confusion, or loneliness. The book uses sex the way a good cinematographer uses lighting. It reveals contours and shadows you would not see otherwise.
That being said, I couldn't help being rubbed the wrong way by the unevenness. The book behaves like a host who keeps serving you exquisite mezze, then suddenly brings out a plate of something that makes you stare at the tablecloth instead of the food. It mixes the sublime with the bizarre, sometimes with purpose, sometimes with a shrug.
The Beirut material makes sense. The historical texture is one of the book's strongest features. The city is presented as a living organism that keeps mutating, collapsing, reviving, and insisting on its own beauty even while everything burns around it. Those sections feel grounded, honest, and sharpened by lived experience. The political decay, the waves of war, the cultural layers, the frustration and affection mixed together, all of that has real weight.
Then you get scenes like the PLO abduction episode with its sexual twist. That one is clearly designed as a provocation, a moment where the narrator exposes the absurdities and humiliations embedded in war and masculinity. Still, it felt excessive and sensational in a book that usually earns its emotions without resorting to circus tricks.
When the tone jumps from historical gravity to explicit absurdity, the whiplash can be real. The book wants to make a point about power, vulnerability, and the strange collisions that trauma can produce, but the delivery is messy.
The political imbalance is very noticeable. The narrative speaks freely about the explosion and the state's corruption, but makes only glancing or highly coded references to Hezbollah. Writers in Lebanon navigate political red lines with the caution of someone handling old dynamite.
Some critiques can be voiced. Others are hushed. And some topics get treated with metaphor or avoidance because the real risks are not literary, they are physical. This silence can feel lopsided if you are reading from outside that ecosystem, but from within it, silence itself can be a survival strategy. Nevertheless, with the loud LGBTQ narrative, and the PLO, Syria, Reagan, and Israel jabs, the avoidance of Hezbollah mentioning felt strange, if not dishonest.
The book has brilliant sections and baffling ones. It has courage in certain areas and caution in others. It mixes tenderness with provocation, confession with performance. You will be reading a work shaped by a country where speech has consequences, layered with a narrator who insists on revealing everything except the things he cannot afford to say.
The novel zigzags between present and past, a sort of family scrapbook where someone spilled coffee, tears, and a few drops of self respect. In the present, Raja cares for Zalfa in Beirut. He dyes her hair, fetches her snacks, and listens to her insult him with maternal devotion. Their life together is a domestic circus that runs on caffeine, nostalgia, and mutual emotional blackmail. It is affectionate and ridiculous. They adore each other with the fierce loyalty of two people stuck in the same elevator for decades.
Then the book dives into the long history of how Raja reached this point. Flashbacks cover everything from his accidental literary career to the country collapsing around him. The banks vanish his savings. The government steals whatever the banks forgot to pocket. The economy performs a disappearing act so complete it deserves a standing ovation. Raja keeps teaching bored students French philosophy while his mother keeps treating loneliness like a personal insult.
And hovering in the middle of all this is the true epic: Zalfa versus the world. Her failed escape to Dubai with the worlds most useless son. Her humiliations in a shiny desert apartment where even the wooden beams in the ceiling act like a bad joke. Her triumphant return to Beirut, where Raja rescues her with the grim determination of a man who knows he will never get his apartment back to himself again.
He rants about her stubbornness while rearranging his life around her whims. She mocks him without mercy while protecting him with the fury of a mythic creature. They fuss, fight, eat, argue, insult, reminisce, panic, reorganize furniture, mourn, celebrate small victories, and generally behave like two people who would not survive without each other yet would never say that out loud.
The plot keeps expanding into stories of war, migration, family betrayals, losses, and personal disasters that somehow land on their feet looking like comedy. His brother takes advantage of everyone. His father leaves memories the way tourists leave trash. The country keeps shaking, breaking, rebuilding, then breaking again. Through it all, Raja clings to books, sarcasm, and the immense family table that serves as both heirloom and hazard. That table becomes the perfect metaphor for their entire lineage: enormous, burdensome, impossible, precious, and permanently in the way.
The book considers love that arrives dressed in irritation, grief disguised as routine, and identity formed from the scraps left after other people finish feeding. It offers a sharp portrait of a city that punishes its people and a family that keeps trying to grow something humane in the cracks.
This is a story about the slow comedy of living with people you did not choose yet could never replace. It is about the mother who calls you an idiot while feeding you, and the son who pretends to hate every minute of it while cutting her fruit just the way she likes.
The whole project pretends to be casual, but underneath the jokes it carries a freight of regret, affection, and political exhaustion that hits harder than the book ever admits. It is clever without being smug, sorrowful without melodrama, and rooted in lived detail.
Raja is a mess of contradictions that feel human rather than theatrical. He is insecure but proud. He is gullible but perceptive. He is resentful but hopelessly loyal. His mother is both anchor and storm. The book keeps toggling between comedy and grief, and somehow that rhythm becomes its emotional signature.
There is also a larger message about Lebanon itself, the way political collapse turns every citizen into a reluctant archivist. Raja keeps remembering because the country keeps forgetting, and memory becomes both burden and duty.
The sex scenes function as markers of longing, fading desire, awkwardness, and the unhappy comedy of aging. The scenes reveal Raja's internal life far better than any philosophical aside could. The sexual moments act like diagnostic tests. They show where the characters carry shame, pride, confusion, or loneliness. The book uses sex the way a good cinematographer uses lighting. It reveals contours and shadows you would not see otherwise.
That being said, I couldn't help being rubbed the wrong way by the unevenness. The book behaves like a host who keeps serving you exquisite mezze, then suddenly brings out a plate of something that makes you stare at the tablecloth instead of the food. It mixes the sublime with the bizarre, sometimes with purpose, sometimes with a shrug.
The Beirut material makes sense. The historical texture is one of the book's strongest features. The city is presented as a living organism that keeps mutating, collapsing, reviving, and insisting on its own beauty even while everything burns around it. Those sections feel grounded, honest, and sharpened by lived experience. The political decay, the waves of war, the cultural layers, the frustration and affection mixed together, all of that has real weight.
Then you get scenes like the PLO abduction episode with its sexual twist. That one is clearly designed as a provocation, a moment where the narrator exposes the absurdities and humiliations embedded in war and masculinity. Still, it felt excessive and sensational in a book that usually earns its emotions without resorting to circus tricks.
When the tone jumps from historical gravity to explicit absurdity, the whiplash can be real. The book wants to make a point about power, vulnerability, and the strange collisions that trauma can produce, but the delivery is messy.
The political imbalance is very noticeable. The narrative speaks freely about the explosion and the state's corruption, but makes only glancing or highly coded references to Hezbollah. Writers in Lebanon navigate political red lines with the caution of someone handling old dynamite.
Some critiques can be voiced. Others are hushed. And some topics get treated with metaphor or avoidance because the real risks are not literary, they are physical. This silence can feel lopsided if you are reading from outside that ecosystem, but from within it, silence itself can be a survival strategy. Nevertheless, with the loud LGBTQ narrative, and the PLO, Syria, Reagan, and Israel jabs, the avoidance of Hezbollah mentioning felt strange, if not dishonest.
The book has brilliant sections and baffling ones. It has courage in certain areas and caution in others. It mixes tenderness with provocation, confession with performance. You will be reading a work shaped by a country where speech has consequences, layered with a narrator who insists on revealing everything except the things he cannot afford to say.
October 11, 2025
Parent/child stories are not my thing, but it didn't take me long to make an exception for this one. It feels a bit weird to use the word "delightful" when much of the plot takes place during a civil war and later one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. Events can get rough, but our narrator and protagonist Raja, as child, young man and not-so-young man, is so endearing and amusing (which is not to say he isn't annoying, as he'd readily admit). And boy, would calling him endearing annoy him. Although this is Raja's story, his small-statured but larger-than-life mother steals every scene she's in, and gives everyone a run for their money. If I could have two fictional characters come to dinner, it would be Raja's mother and Kepler's mother from Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch. And maybe the Wife of Bath for good measure.
My only quibble is that it is divided into a few large sections, and I'd have preferred more chapter or other kind of breaks. On audio it was a bit daunting to see individual sections that were two hours long, making it hard to find stopping places. But the pace didn't drag in spite of that and the reader, GM Hakim, is terrific.
My only quibble is that it is divided into a few large sections, and I'd have preferred more chapter or other kind of breaks. On audio it was a bit daunting to see individual sections that were two hours long, making it hard to find stopping places. But the pace didn't drag in spite of that and the reader, GM Hakim, is terrific.
October 8, 2025
The most okay novel of all time.
Good characters. Well developed dialogue.
Drab humor that doesn’t land 3/4 of the time.
A dragging last half and sort of Jess-Walter-esque-summer-read-book-even-Jenna-skipped-for-her-book-club ending.
Yet another author that thinks writing the word “cicada” and talking about their sound being insufferable counts as good enough to make the setting be outside. Thinks it’s so good he says something about cicadas twice. (Why does all modern literature need to talk about cicadas for no reason?)
And this passage made me bored about trees for the first time in my life:
“Even without light, I could see how beautiful the area was. The trees: so many varieties of pines, the birches, the red maples, and dozens I didn't recognize. My butt melted into the chair; my mind tried to slow down.”
So many varieties. Dozens I didn’t recognize. Lol what is this.
Good characters. Well developed dialogue.
Drab humor that doesn’t land 3/4 of the time.
A dragging last half and sort of Jess-Walter-esque-summer-read-book-even-Jenna-skipped-for-her-book-club ending.
Yet another author that thinks writing the word “cicada” and talking about their sound being insufferable counts as good enough to make the setting be outside. Thinks it’s so good he says something about cicadas twice. (Why does all modern literature need to talk about cicadas for no reason?)
And this passage made me bored about trees for the first time in my life:
“Even without light, I could see how beautiful the area was. The trees: so many varieties of pines, the birches, the red maples, and dozens I didn't recognize. My butt melted into the chair; my mind tried to slow down.”
So many varieties. Dozens I didn’t recognize. Lol what is this.
September 8, 2025
3 stars. I enjoyed this book, especially its insights into the troubled history of Lebanon and the toll that wars and other disasters have taken on its people, but also their resilience. I also appreciated the ways that family is explored, warts and all, and this book's interesting cast of characters. Lastly, I also value the presentation of LGBTQ+ stories from outside our mainstream American culture.
Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.
Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.
November 30, 2025
Outstanding audiobook!
May 29, 2025
The addition of “(and His Mother)” in the title of this book is important, because Raja’s mother Zalfa is almost a more colorful character than Raja himself. The relationship between the two is certainly vivid, something that pulses throughout the pages. I loved getting to know both characters and how they were shaped by Beirut’s history, their friends (and enemies?) and each other. Raja is a beloved high school teacher, widely known and accepted as homosexual. It is his experiences as a captive of Boodie’s during Beirut’s civil war that stick out most from the narrative for me. Likewise, Raja’s mother’s relationship with her friend Madame Taweel is key to her story. It’s the way in which these one-off characters were so expertly defined and drawn that make this a special book imo. Author Alameddine’s book “An Unnecessary Woman” has long been on my TBR list. After my experience with this book, I’m now more likely to finally read this earlier book.
Much thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing me with an e-ARC of this title.
Much thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing me with an e-ARC of this title.
September 21, 2025
Great book.
This is one of the books nominated for the 2025 National Book Award for fiction.
In 2023, Raja, age 63, and his mother Zalfa, age 82, are living in Raja's small apartment in Beruit, Lebanon. They have glorious yelling fights with his mother's favorite ending line being "Fuck your mother." Raja is gay. His cousin Nahed, daughter of his hated Aunt (father's sister), is a lesbian but they do not become friends until 2020. Zalfa is small in stature but large in personality. She knows everyone and is seemingly beloved by all. Raja seeks a quiet life, which is an impossibility with his mother. Raja is a professor of philosophy and has been for 40 years or so. His students (his "brats" as he calls them) all love him. He has inspired them all. And, despite his desire to not interact personally with them or talk about them, his mother knows them all and is friends with many of them and tells them things about him. She met many of them on the protest lines where she and they were teargassed and arrested. Her best friend, met during Covid, is Madam Taweel -- a Mafia-type person.
Raja tells the story of his life (and his mother's) and it's a dousy -- funny, tragic, sad, poignant, and loving.
While I have more of the longlist to read (too many are not published until November), this would be a worthy winner.
This is one of the books nominated for the 2025 National Book Award for fiction.
In 2023, Raja, age 63, and his mother Zalfa, age 82, are living in Raja's small apartment in Beruit, Lebanon. They have glorious yelling fights with his mother's favorite ending line being "Fuck your mother." Raja is gay. His cousin Nahed, daughter of his hated Aunt (father's sister), is a lesbian but they do not become friends until 2020. Zalfa is small in stature but large in personality. She knows everyone and is seemingly beloved by all. Raja seeks a quiet life, which is an impossibility with his mother. Raja is a professor of philosophy and has been for 40 years or so. His students (his "brats" as he calls them) all love him. He has inspired them all. And, despite his desire to not interact personally with them or talk about them, his mother knows them all and is friends with many of them and tells them things about him. She met many of them on the protest lines where she and they were teargassed and arrested. Her best friend, met during Covid, is Madam Taweel -- a Mafia-type person.
Raja tells the story of his life (and his mother's) and it's a dousy -- funny, tragic, sad, poignant, and loving.
While I have more of the longlist to read (too many are not published until November), this would be a worthy winner.
December 6, 2025
If you can empathize with loving a member of your family but not always liking them. Wanting to strangle them on a daily basis but would also die for them without hesitation. I would like to introduce you to Raja and his mother.
October 24, 2025
4.5 stars!
October 5, 2025
All my reviews live at https://deedireads.com/reads/.
Thank goodness the National Book Award bumped this to the top of my TBR — because what a fantastic book about a gay Lebanese man and his ferocious mother and all the ways our families and our culture and our love for one another sustains us.
As you can probably tell from the title, this book is funny and warm and light-hearted in tone, even though it’s quite serious in subject matter (a big chunk of it takes place during the pandemic, and the Lebanese civil war, and more besides). I finished it and wasn’t immediately sure what to think, because I felt like I’d just finished a comedy and a tragedy at the same time — which I had — but very quickly I realized that that dichotomy is its brilliance.
“Sneaky excellent” was how I have come to describe it, because it will wallop you without you even realizing it. Alameddine’s use of voice and humor is nothing short of masterful.
Please do yourself a favor and pick this up!
Content and trigger warnings:
Kidnapping; Confinement; Gun violence; Homophobia; Death of a parent; COVID-19 pandemic; Toxic sexual relationship
Thank goodness the National Book Award bumped this to the top of my TBR — because what a fantastic book about a gay Lebanese man and his ferocious mother and all the ways our families and our culture and our love for one another sustains us.
As you can probably tell from the title, this book is funny and warm and light-hearted in tone, even though it’s quite serious in subject matter (a big chunk of it takes place during the pandemic, and the Lebanese civil war, and more besides). I finished it and wasn’t immediately sure what to think, because I felt like I’d just finished a comedy and a tragedy at the same time — which I had — but very quickly I realized that that dichotomy is its brilliance.
“Sneaky excellent” was how I have come to describe it, because it will wallop you without you even realizing it. Alameddine’s use of voice and humor is nothing short of masterful.
Please do yourself a favor and pick this up!
Content and trigger warnings:
Kidnapping; Confinement; Gun violence; Homophobia; Death of a parent; COVID-19 pandemic; Toxic sexual relationship
Read
December 19, 2025This is one of those books that the more I sat with it, the more I enjoyed it. There was one section of this book that almost made me give up on it, but outside of that, I really enjoyed my experience with this book. Raja and his mother are characters in the best sense of the word and although the storytelling style feels like it is going all over the place, it actually comes together in a really interesting way in the end.
Watch my full review here: https://youtu.be/PJTilocp0ME
Watch my full review here: https://youtu.be/PJTilocp0ME
December 3, 2025
Definitely not what I was expecting. The entire premise of the story jumped around at times.
December 21, 2025
I found this very engaging as the author has a strong gift for characterization. It kept me turning the pages and made me laugh out loud at times. The first novel I have read set in Lebanon. I know very little of their historical struggles but thankfully this story can be enjoyed without that context. A worthy recipient of the National Book award.
November 14, 2025
4.5 stars
A charming story about the life of a gay Lebanese man (and his mother). It opens in 2023 when Raja, a teacher in his '60s, and his elderly mother are living together in a cramped apartments in Beirut. The two of them bicker constantly and his mother respects no boundaries. Raja begins telling the story of how he accepted a writing residency in Virginia in 2021 because he needed a break from his mother and then meanders back in time tracing the arc of his life through chapters organized around major events - the Civil War from 1975-90, the Covid pandemic, Lebanon's banking collapse, a massive explosion in Beirut in 2020 and also the trip to Virginia.
The author is a wonderful storyteller - this novel starts off slow but once it got going I couldn't put it down. A witty, touching story of the love between a mother and her son and resilience during traumatic times - Raja and his mother are unforgettable characters.
A charming story about the life of a gay Lebanese man (and his mother). It opens in 2023 when Raja, a teacher in his '60s, and his elderly mother are living together in a cramped apartments in Beirut. The two of them bicker constantly and his mother respects no boundaries. Raja begins telling the story of how he accepted a writing residency in Virginia in 2021 because he needed a break from his mother and then meanders back in time tracing the arc of his life through chapters organized around major events - the Civil War from 1975-90, the Covid pandemic, Lebanon's banking collapse, a massive explosion in Beirut in 2020 and also the trip to Virginia.
The author is a wonderful storyteller - this novel starts off slow but once it got going I couldn't put it down. A witty, touching story of the love between a mother and her son and resilience during traumatic times - Raja and his mother are unforgettable characters.
Want to read
October 27, 2025 Congratulations 🎉 Nominated 2025 National Book Award
Another Book I keep reading excellent reviews and want to get to soon. Seems like such an interesting story….love the title with Raja (and his mother) added in. Life can be like that 🤣
Another Book I keep reading excellent reviews and want to get to soon. Seems like such an interesting story….love the title with Raja (and his mother) added in. Life can be like that 🤣
October 15, 2025
Solid, solid novel. The conceit of an elder gay living with his mother may not be the freshest, but having the novel set in Lebanon gave it a new twist. The tantalizing element, the email offering our main character residency in the US, and the slow dole of information that leads up to the trip kept pulling me through the novel. The main thrust of the novel, that is the three major events that occurred in his life (kidnapping, COVID, the explosion in Beirut), took up the majority of the book and, once they were told, back to the email and the residency, and a very surprisingly genesis of the residency.
I found the kidnapping portion of the novel engrossing and surprising. And I loved the relationship with his mother, particularly when they were older. I found the funeral stuff after her passing surprisingly emotional.
Great book.
I found the kidnapping portion of the novel engrossing and surprising. And I loved the relationship with his mother, particularly when they were older. I found the funeral stuff after her passing surprisingly emotional.
Great book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 1, 2025
Will the real protagonist of the True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) please stand up? While I loved curmudgeonly Raja, school master and local homosexual, I grew to love his mother as much or almost more! This story puts the “fun” in dysfunctional family. I don’t read to laugh, but I laughed out loud often when I was reading this book. What makes that special for me is that the humor was intelligent and it resonated with me, unlike the milked to death jokes in most self-proclaimed “funny” books published today. This is a family story that takes place against the backdrop of the violence and civil war in Beirut, adding another layer to the story’s richness, which, even though funny, also took readers to some dark places, so brace yourselves. Alameddine’s writing is witty, charming, brutally honest, and original, and even though there is plenty of cursing and mayhem among these family members, there is also so much love, especially between Raja and his mother, who would both be his wingman if she thinks he would like to get to know his handsome downstairs neighbor better and fight to the death for him with courage and tenacity in his times of trouble. At one point, the whole army fears her. I highly recommend this book!
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