Washes, Prays

by Noor Naga

RBC Bronwen Wallace Award winner Noor Naga's bracing debut, a novel-in-verse about a young woman's romantic relationship with a married man and her ensuing crisis of faith.

Coocoo is a young immigrant woman in Toronto. Her faith is worn threadbare after years of bargaining with God to end her loneliness and receiving no answer. Then she meets her mirror-image; Muhammad is a professor and father of two. He's also married.

Heartbreaking and hilarious, this verse-novel chronicles Coocoo's spiraling descent: the transformation of her love into something at first desperate and obsessive, then finally cringing and animal, utterly without grace. Her best friend, Nouf, remains by her side throughout, and together they face the growing contradictions of Coocoo's life. What does it mean to pray while giving your body to a man who cannot keep it? How long can a homeless love survive on the streets? These are some of the questions this verse-novel swishes around in its mouth.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature

80 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2020

Reviews

[Sai · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself reading entire passages over and over again, just to hang on to the feelings they induced. This is such a remarkable book.

[Shagufta · Rating 4 out of 5]

This verse novel is brave and beautiful and complex and I loved it.

[Katharine Ball · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was impossible to put this book down. The prose pulls you into a complicated, real, tragic, funny and delicately crafted world.

[Sagar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know why.....the book was written.....like this.....but I liked it.....I think.....most of the book went over my head.....but I loved what I understood.....the lack of punctation made me.....keep having to reread.....but.....that made me think about.....the text more.....I don't know if that was.....intentional or not.....this was not really for me.....I think poets or people who study writing would enjoy.....this more.

[Syd Lazarus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sucked the air out of me, totally winded me. It's devastating, funny, clever, and anyone who reads it will wish they could write like Noor.

[Kat Mcl · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was incredible! loved the format of their poetry

[Brandon Forsyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

To borrow a line from Talib Kweli, both profound and profane. Naga shows an incredible use of spacing here, and I love the way the pauses implied by her spacing make some of the words hit and connect and separate. I’d love to see this poetry performed.

[Anna Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved If an Egyptian so I was excited to read this but I’m not entirely convinced. Some of the poems really stuck out to me (like Flossing) but most of it wasn’t for me

[Hijaz Jamal · Rating 5 out of 5]

"wherever you turn
there is the Face of God"

and when the dark
entered the kitchen and sat
panting like a good dog

how nouf
will I ever repent?

Parts of the story might be too enigmatic for me, but the blurb makes it clear what the whole plot is about - an immigrant Muslim woman named Coocoo who, estranged as she is in Toronto, finds herself entangled in an extramarital affair with a married professor. It is amid this bad life decision that she questions her faith and desperately struggles to remain tethered to Allah, always with a loyal friend, Nouf, by her side.

The novel is written in the form of prose poems. Throughout the book, we are privy to Coocoo's stream of consciousness twice in two separate sections, with an interlude in between with that of Nouf, as she reflects and witnesses her friend interrogate the possibility of repentance.

While it is apparent upon my second reading that the occasional mature language used (content warning 😬) makes me feel uncomfortable (although some might be taken aback with even the basic premise of the book), I love the author's necessarily raw portrayal of what it means to sin, yet all the while genuinely grapple for whatever one can salvage from the ashes of faith that remain. Also, the random encounters that I had with reference to the Qur'an and hadith as well as ramblings on the Arabic language made this all the more fascinating to read.

In any case, I wish I'm smart enough to understand poetry, but surprise, surprise my brain isn't built for one lol. Well to be fair, Washes, Prays isn't a collection of poems. The author calls her book a verse-novel. And the parts that I do manage to understand somehow make me give this book 5 stars (yes, unreliable ratings I know 🚩). 🙃

[Bookwookie ✿🇵🇸 · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The question what is a suitable place to put God is not the question, the question is how did God get out in the first place”

some of the poems I didn’t really understand, but I felt like that just added to the whole premise- it’s meant to be ramblings of a woman in deep obsessive love, so I thought that it made sense. I really really liked it anyway and the poems which I did understand were so so good!!!

[Esperance A Mulonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

| Dying animals do not shout I WANT MY KISS BACK FROM YOUR EYELID GIVE ME BACK MY HAIR GIVE ME BACK MY HYMEN GIVE ME BACK MY GOD I



This book has a charm that i cannot explain. But i love it, I really do.

[Rachel Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Noor Naga has written an accomplished, powerful collection. Coocoo's voice is powerful yet vulnerable, her observations passionate and provocative as she chronicles the breakdown of her affair.

[Peyton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Washes, Prays is an excellent example of why you should never judge a book by its cover. If only the imagery of the poems inside this book matched the beauty of the imagery on the outside. Several fantastic books have been written about women who stay with men who lie, cheat, and ignore them. The appeal of these books relies on their poignancy in exploring the personal and social context of why women put up with these arrangements. Unfortunately, Washes, Prays does not provide any explanation as to why Coocoo is so infatuated with a married man and unwilling to end their affair. Coocoo is incredibly self-deprecating. She remarks that she would be willing to lick the inside of her boyfriend’s wife’s toilet if it meant he would stay with her. There are disgusting and dehumanizing moments like this throughout the book, and none of them feel justified in the context of a simple affair. Naga undeniably has many great ideas. She provides an interesting, in-depth discussion of Coocoo’s crisis of faith over being ‘the other woman’ (“this religion is not sentimental is not just fuzzy heart-feels / it is a code of law if you step outside the law this religion stops talking to you / it is unclear how to proceed”) but this fails to redeem the book as a whole. I also take issue with Naga’s contrived use of form. Overall, Washes, Prays is a boring and uncomfortable read that I would not recommend to anyone.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a beautiful and heartbreaking book.

[Hala · Rating 2 out of 5]

Washes, Prays to me is an example of a book with potential that has not been realized. I struggle to review it fairly, because my focus was drawn to the spacing and to deciphering the seemingly unnecessary complexity the author brought to just about every sentence.

One thing was very clear, and that was the emotional roller coaster that resulted from the relationship between Coocoo and the married man. Related to this, the bond between the two best friends was amplified, with a somewhat hidden message that it was Nouf who pulled Coocoo through and helped her find her footing.

I found it off-putting that the story of a Muslim woman having an affair with a Muslim man is very explicitly attached to Islam itself. I’m not sure why this was so integral to the book.

The poems allude to the struggle with understanding religion, and the difficulty in living life according to a series of rights and wrongs. All fair - but in my opinion, had the author put in a little more work into deciphering the characters’ personas, their relationship to Islam and their ecosystem, it may have been more interesting.

As it stands, this is “just” a story of an affair where the woman struggled with her personal morals, ethics and sexual desire (maybe even love). The pseudo-added edge would be the dramatics in which the prose was written.

[Hesa Almheiri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this poetry book because it said poetry and the cover was nice
I'm glad in this case I judged a book by its cover because I learned a new poetry genre
The story so simple yet it never fails to hurt, to show the tenderness of women and their love when they are whole or when they fall apart, or watching you fall apart

[Molly Parsons-O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Washes, Prays is a slender but remarkable novel in verse, meaning the story is conveyed in a much more lyrical and abstract way than some readers might be used to. It tells the story of Coocoo, a young and devout Muslim woman living in Toronto, who finds herself heartbreakingly lonely although she has the steadfast companionship of her best friend Nouf, because she is living a life devoid of romantic love. Feeling as though she has been forgotten by god, she is all too vulnerable to falling madly and hopelessly in love with the first man to make her feel special. The catch? He’s already married. But how can a love that feels so holy be a sin? And how can Coocoo call herself a woman of faith as she wilfully sins again and again? And what happens when you cut yourself off from all the keeps you grounded for the sake of a love that is doomed to fail? These are the questions that Naga toys with over the course of this brief but impactful novel, channeling Coocoo’s disorientated and chaotic feelings through the passion of her poetry. If you like your novels a little more grounded in prose, this might not be for you but if you’re a poetry lover who’s maybe nursing a broken heart you should absolutely check this out.

[Maryam · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's something to like about Noor Naga's craft from it's playfulness with genre as a novel-in-verse, to it's deliberate manner in which Naga's seeks to dissolve stereotypes of Muslim women (particularly as it pertains to rejecting the image of female piety/purity, and Muslim women as being too far removed from desiring sexual intimacy and affirmation).

Meet Khadijah, also known as Coo Coo in Washes, Prays, a Hijabi woman who has an affair with her professor, Mohammed, a married man. In the backdrop of Toronto, Naga ruminates on the desperation of a woman seemingly too far gone in her faith (and morals?) and her appetite to feel even remotely desirable to a very much comically unappealing man. There are some verses which are capturing and unlike any poetry I've read before, which makes it an instant must read for me--especially for those into poetry. And there are some images which are quite uncomfortable, as in they are quite visceral, but nevertheless follow the tone of the uncomfortable subject matter. Overall, I wouldn't normally go out of my way to read about cheaters and homewreckers (especially when they're the main subject of a narrative) but I enjoyed how it realistically portrays how many of these relationships start and end.

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel of beautiful, heartbreaking obsession, it is almost monomaniacal in its interiority of Coocoo's love and self-doubt with only a brief intermission for her friend Nouf's more expansive meditations on faith.

Like good poetry it captures the incredible pull of emotion with precision and incredible imagery and depth. Her lover, and indeed, most everything around her, remains undefined and fleeting, only visible in brief glimpses as she gasps for air, with no periods or capital letters only adding to the breathlessness.

The form for both Coocoo and Nouf's meditations is carefully considered and adds to their characterization, hyperfocused in emotion and only allowing a small range, the novel pierces you to the core while leaving a wide edge of mystery that you can then apply and add your own experiences as you process Coocoo's trauma with her.

[Brittney Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5*

I should preface this review by saying I am not really a poetry person, especially modern poetry. It just has never done it for me and I don’t truly get the appeal. That said this book has some beautiful passages and lines in the poems but unless you know a lot about religion you are an outsider and have to do a lot of googling which I am perfectly okay with. However, even after extensive googling some poems made no sense whatsoever that it felt like words that just sounded good together were put together for no rhyme or reason.

I am excited to see what I think about her newest work, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English. I saw lots of potential in this short collection/verse novel that I am hopeful for her newer stuff.

Also, I feel like this could benefit from a re-read, so maybe I will do that one day. But all in all, not an absolute fave like I thought it was going to be.

[hiaa123 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Washes, Prays is a novel in verse about Coocoo, a Muslim woman who has an affair with a married man, falling obsessively in love. A gripping read that tells the story of Coocoo stepping out of the norms of her religion, seeking escape from loneliness. I loved the contradiction between Coocoo's faith and prayer with her search for love in a sinful affair. A humanizing portrait of a Muslim woman, reflecting the reality of many women's struggle to live a full life within or without their faith. A powerful depiction of female friendship as well through the understanding and love of Nouf.

"This is a practical religion
...it is a code of law if you step
outside the law this religion stops talking to you
it is unclear how to proceed."

[Dania · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘"whoever kills a soul - unless for a soul or corruption in the land - it is as if he has killed all of mankind" does this not beg the question what is the distinction between a volcano and a mosquito wing?
…
how about one fuck from many fucks?’

The continuous thread, cadence, the middle-of-the-book brilliant perspective switch. The honesty. The excellence of which this collection holds. The breaking of so many systems with this one piece of literature. Noor Naga the woman you are, the woman that you are.

‘I woke up in a body wanting a whipping in a
house with curtains stitched from the finest family of ghosts’

Pulls you in by the throat, the kind of poems that stick with you for a really long time until you get that itch to reread them again, and again, and again

[Talia]

???/?

I picked up this book because I read (and ADORED) If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English.

What I didn’t realize I was about to read was 63 pages of prose that’s either meant to confuse or meant for a different audience.

For the entire time that I spent on this book, I had only a very vague sense of what was going on. I know that Coocoo had an affair with the professor and she was obsessed with him and then it ended and she went to his house naked and in a sheet covered in period blood and the wife answered the door and that’s about all I got.

In light of this, I cannot even fathom how I might rate it.

Therefore, I give it: 3 question marks. 😤

[OK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the horny women of the heterosexual persuasion lusting for older/married men this is one of the better ones. lyrical, aesthetically pleasing, linguistically nimble. Each ending so meticulously toiled over and brilliantly paced.


You moved through the room like someone I was once young with / someone I already miss (20)


I have always been that one’s voice is thinner when one is naked, the way water at every temperature has a different flavor (43)


I comfort myself: she might know his morning smell, but she / doesn’t know her own fleecing / she might know his morning smell but I know her name and mine (51)

[Jacob Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Noor Naga writes:


freud who enjoyed cocaine for 13 years left in his will 153 boxes of clinical notes and correspondence he left them to the library of congress with stipulations: some boxes were to be accessible at once to the public some boxes were to be accessible in 2020 some in 2050 some in 2053 some in 2057 eight of the boxes were never to be accessible to anyone at all what I’m trying to say is it’s possible to give a gift that is not there or even to give a gift that swallows what is.

[Noora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm, of course it’s incredibly difficult to craft rich and nuanced characters in-verse, but I do wish CooCoo came across as a little more than... purely desperate (which is perhaps the point of her character, in which case my question is: did she have to be?). I think there’s a way to capture the contradictions of yearning (with)in a religious framework without falling into the cliche of writing really obsessive/depressive characters. Im not sure this book successfully does that. There were some really beautiful passages but mostly this book fell flat for me. Sad!

[Sumaiya Matin · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Washes, Prays" by Noor Naga. I am absolutely fascinated by this story about a young hijabi woman who endures a crisis of faith and has a download spiral as she falls harder in love with a married man. In this poetic, almost musical telling, the character negotiates what it means to pray while in love, although it is not quite the right kind of love, and after having experienced loneliness for years. Other than the experimental storytelling, I loved how the author captured contradictions.

[Samhita* · Rating 5 out of 5]

"dying animals do not shout I WANT MY KISS BACK FROM YOUR EYELID"

Naga's writing feels like you're immediately swept up in rapid currents and it's impossible to put down and the little details don't matter so much when you're swept up in the feeling of it all. but then you'd focus in, rock against your side, and a line will absolutely sucker punch you.

i want to crawl inside her brain and see how she thinks to put things together the way she does it is magical to me

[Shafiqah Nor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Captivating prose and poetry - a novel-in-verse style. This is about a 25 year old Muslim woman Khadija in Toronto who has an affair with a married man. The writing is split into three sections: washes, nouf, prays.

The chronic loneliness and heartbreaking grief left me breathless. Complexities of desire and profound struggle in faith showed depth. I did find the fragmented thoughts difficult to follow and unconventional, but creatively delivered.

[Caitlin]

Washes, Prays is beautiful and funny and sad, and, I think, more than a story of a heartbreak, more than a story of a crisis of faith, it’s a story of two young women, trying to find themselves and their way. My full review is available here: https://essentiallyanerd.wordpress.co...