Floodlines

by Saleem Haddad

A sweeping, multi-generational novel about three estranged Iraqi-British sisters who are grappling with the legacies of war, exile and family secrets.

Floodlines beautifully and seamlessly intertwines a multitude of themes, from living as an artist to living in exile, from the long afterlife of trauma to queerness and the climate crisis. It’s an emotionally wrenching novel full of complex women characters that also transports us to the long-lost Iraq of the 1950s and Iraq today.

Genres: Queer

336 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication February 12, 2026

About the author

Saleem Haddad was born in Kuwait City to an Iraqi-German mother and a Palestinian-Lebanese father.

His first novel, Guapa, was published in 2016, receiving critical acclaim from The New Yorker, The Guardian, and others, and was awarded both a Stonewall Honour and the 2017 Polari First Book Prize.

He has also published a number of short stories, including for the Palestinian sci-fi anthology Palestine +100. He also writes for film and television; his directorial debut, Marco, premiered in March 2019 and was nominated for the 2019 Iris Prize for ‘Best British Short Film’. His work has been supported by institutions such as Yaddo and the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin.

He is currently based in Lisbon, with roots in London, Amman, and Beirut

Reviews

[Alesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating novel for many reasons. It deals with modern Iraq, bi-cultural families, queerness, interfamily dynamics, and the importance of art in the Arab world.

At first I was tempted to put the book down, since the vicious arguments between three sisters were disturbingly real (and very depressing). Also, the author writes without telling us who is speaking, which can get pretty confusing. With four main female characters, it takes some effort to figure out the dialogue. I'm not sure why the author chose to punctuate this way, but I wish he hadn't.

Which brings us to the topic of a man writing from four female viewpoints (plus one male viewpoint). I didn't realize the author was a gay man until after finishing the book. That explained why a few of the females' issues felt just a bit off to me (for example, the lifelong trauma of a miscarriage, when numerous healthy children came afterwards). But for the most part, he got inter-sister rivalry right.

A lot of the book is about the importance of art. All of the main characters are artists, some very famous and some not. The deceased father of the family was one of Iraq's most prominent artists. In the afterward, we learn that he was a real person, as was his wife, and the novel is loosely based on his life and family. Not being all that knowledgeable about art myself, a lot of the artsy discussions went over my head. But the parts about the intersections of colonial and Middle East art were fascinating.

The discussions about the Iraqi diaspora were wonderful. I really enjoyed learning about the longing for a homeland that no longer exists, how emigres feel displaced their entire lives, and how this defines their personalities. The characters ended up living in many different countries, over many periods of turmoil in the Arab world, and all of this rang true.

Some the secrets/reveals felt a bit stretched to me. But it all came together nicely in the end. I enjoyed one character becoming obsessed with the myth of Gilgamesh and wanting to float an old-style ark down the Tigris River. I wasn't sure about the details of all this (boating in Iraq while ISIS is on the rampage, for instance), but it was interesting to say the least.

The author really poured his heart and soul into this book, which I admire. I learned so much. It wasn't always easy reading, jumping around frequently between voices, and participating in witnessing deep family arguments. But once hooked, I couldn't put it down.

The writing is elegant:

"It is difficult to love an artist. They are selfish creatures. An artist might lie, cheat, and steal with the belief they are creating something more important than a single life. To love an artist, you must have an even stronger belief in the power of art. An artist's lover lives with the heat and smoke of the fire, but the light falls elsewhere."

Thanks the NetGalley and the publisher for an advance review copy.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this multi-generational family drama based around 3 sisters & their extended family of artists from Iraq. Dealing with loss, exile, displacement, memory, hope and sisterly drama.

The inheritance of their late fathers paintings brings up long buried secrets and traumas that can't be ignored. I liked seeing the history of Iraq through a family perspective; the estranged sisters have to deal with their shattered links to each other and to their country, both transformed by tragedy.

The weight of history and the transformation of memories is heavy but the hope for something else glimmers. We can only live so long in stasis before we have to flow on. Art and the river will show us the way; the path of the future threads away before us, full of hope even with the inevitable uncertainty of its future flooding.

I really enjoyed this exceptional novel, the voices are beautiful, authentic, moving and extremely hopeful. Now need to read his other novel.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc for my honest review.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very strong follow up from Saleem Haddad after his debut Guapa. The scope here is wider, observing an Iraqi family in exile across generations. It follows Bridget, a British woman married to Haydar, a famous Iraqi artist, and their three children Mediha, Ishtar, and Zainab. It also follows Zainab’s son Nizar, a gay war photographer. Different character’s stories mirror others and there is a lot of recurring imagery woven throughout.

Big themes include grief, homeland, memory and myth. Following a family of artists, art itself is examined as a tool for resistance, myth making, and healing. This exploration of art, imperialism, and diaspora reminded me of Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar (though I personally enjoyed this more).

There’s a lot of ground to cover here and I think it mostly succeeded. Nizar’s story featured less than I thought it would but we did get a good snapshot of how everyone in the family was shaped by their own history within the family and the conflicts within Iraq. At times the characters felt like mouthpieces for certain ideologies or philosophies which made the dialogue feel a bit unnatural. Overall though I really enjoyed this and think it will stick with me for a long time. I also really appreciated the afterword which revealed the story was inspired in part by real Iraqi artists Jawad and Lorna Saleem and was written with the support and blessing of the family.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was so excited to see that a new book by Saleem Haddad was coming out after reading and loving 'Guapa', back when it was a new book! And this novel didn't disappoint. Multiple perspectives and storylines - which is just up my street - all winding together like the river which flows through the novel itself like a metaphor. A novel about love and loss and the difficulty of sustaining relationship when the world and events puts pressure on those relationships; a novel about our connection to the land and to our culture, which asks questions about what happens to that connection when we, the land or our culture changes.

I couldn't give the fifth star because in some places, especially in part 4, it was quite difficult to determine whose story we're reading. Perhaps this was deliberate, it which case I can appreciate it but it doesn't work for me. Perhaps it was a formatting issue with the eARC, in which case I hope it's fixed for the general release.

I received the eARC from NetGalley and have left this anonymous review in exchange.

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for a review.

Like Mesopotamia in between two flowing rivers, Floodlines tells one Iraqi family’s story between the UK and Iraq over decades. The narration shifts focus from one family member to another, tracing each one’s meandering currents back and forth across various countries, from Iraq, Kuwait, the UK, the UAE, Egypt, or Yemen. The plot revolves around how the characters—three sisters, Ishtar, Zainab, and Mediha, their mother, Bridget, and Nizar, Zainab’s son—both seek to avoid, to embrace, re-piece and make sense of both their family past and legacy and that of the violence committed against their home. In one way or another, all of the character’s are searching for ways to articulate and work through these questions through different discourses of collective political violence and individual trauma and different forms of expression (art, journalistic writing, academia, etc.).

The story is beautifully and carefully crafted in such a way that each member of the family’s past is reconstructed for readers at a constant and balanced pace. The final effect of this is a cubistic view of a lived and shared past: the shifts in point of view, the distinct vantage points from which the story is narrated, lend themselves not so much to a final revelation of the truth, but to a verisimilitude of how individuals and personal shared experiences can take on a multiplicity of impressions and meanings, even when these are contradictory to one another. This is all cemented in the final chapter with a shift from a third-person narrator to a series of fragments narrated in first-person.

At its heart, the novel asks what abstractions like “home”, “trauma”, “legacy” and “history” mean, about how our origins, experiences of suffering, and our past implicate us in those realities of others, even unknowingly so, and how this truth can also wound us. In this sense, Floodlines very much points to universal human experiences that transcend identity, but it is also very much about the specific historical and geopolitical context of the Arab world that has been vilified, victimized, brutalized by Western imperialism and colonialism. Put another way, it is about families and shared pasts, but also about those individuals and societies who are forced to deal with repercussions of global war.