Ramadan Ramsey

by Louis Edwards

The Guggenheim and Whiting Award-winning author makes his long-awaited comeback with this epic tale, spanning from the Deep South to the Middle East, that bridges four countries, two cultures, and three families who struggle to love and survive in the face of war, natural disasters, and other calamities beyond their control.

Ramadan Ramsey is the improbable love story between Alicia Ramsey, a ninth generation New Orleans African American, and Mustafah Tota, a Syrian refugee in the city’s Ninth Ward. Through a series of familial betrayals, Mustafah returns to Syria unaware that Alicia is carrying his child. 

When the baby is born, Alicia names their son Ramadan and raises him with the help of her mother, Mama Joon. But tragedy strikes when Hurricane Katrina barrels into New Orleans, shattering the Ramsey family. Years later, when Ramadan turns seventeen, he sets off to find Mustafah. It is an odyssey filled with breathtaking and brilliant adventures that takes the young man from the familiar world of NOLA to Egypt, Istanbul, and finally Syria, where he hopes to reunite with the father he has never known.

Beautiful, atmospheric, emotionally rich, this compelling novel offers a fresh perspective on the immigrant experience and what it means to feel homeless in one’s own homeland. Ramadan Ramsey is a reminder of Louis Edwards’ immense talent and fearless storytelling and is a welcome return of this literary light.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Family, Audiobook, Contemporary, Young Adult

400 pages, Hardcover

First published August 10, 2021

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

A grandmother’s gift of unconditional love gives a little boy the courage to search for his father in war-torn Syria. A beautiful story filled with humor, heart and an abundance of hope.

I received a copy of this book from Amistad/HarperCollins through Edelweiss.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

really a 3.7. at first I was frustrated with it for metaphors such as this one “he would present her with the obstinacy of an ATM given the wrong pin”.
But at about page 120 of 380 I found a different way to approach this novel which helped me to really appreciate it. This is the story of the child of a young African-American woman in New Orleans and a young Syrian immigrant who returns to Syria without knowing she is pregnant. He is raised by his grandmother and at the age of 12 makes it to Istanbul, then Aleppo in search of his father. Some of the coincidences strain credulity, but as soon as I began to think of it as a graphic novel, or a fable, it became a really lovely read. I just wish I had had that sensibility about it at the front end. Gave me good feelings.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard a section of this book read by the author at the Community of Writers, a summer writing conference, and I fell in love with the music of the writing. Many people write a rousing story, but not all of them have the love of language that makes each sentence a thing of beauty. I bought the book, tucked it away until the right moment, when I wanted to read a semi-mythical, deliciously musical novel about a young New Orleans boy, his young black mother Alicia and her extensive family headed by a powerful matriarch, Mama Joon, and his young immigrant father, Mustafa, a Syrian Muslim, who's life is fatefully steered by his own family, both by his uncle and boss in America, and his mother and aunt back in Aleppo.

Where at first it reminded me of the multi-voiced The Travelers by Regina Porter, I soon realized we were on very different turf, that there would be a rather fairy-tale quality about this book, and its protagonist, Ramadan. Not quite magical realism, but often time-out-of-time, with unusual responses and unlikely journeys and connections, more like A Gentleman from Moscow in that sense. The book has to find its reader, as the cynical will sooner or later question the the survival of this magical boy.

Read it for the joy of the language and its unforgettable characters, a real 'tale.' Here's a bit of a predatory aunt, swooping down on Ramadan after the passing of his beloved grandmother, the family matriarch:

"Clarissa flung open Mama Joon's bedroom door as forcefully as she had Ramadan's. The same conquistador spirit consumed her now, pressing her forward with a Cortesian glee. Her Montezuma was no more, and what was left behind rightfully belonged to her. She wanted what ever looter wants. Loot, of course--on the low end, anything of value; on the high, something precious, unexpected, unknown..."

Here's Mustafa, thinking about the chewing gum he restocks, and the democratic legacy of providing people with the small things they need:
"Mustafa accepted and internalized this: Every stick of Wrigley's was redolent of the republic. And for him, America, once as foreign and unthinkable a destination as Mars, once as distant and virtual as www.wrigley.com, acquired a realness, as well as some of the specific properties of his favorite product, Wrigley's gum: a familiarity, a fathomable appeal, a surprising and substantive complexity that challenged the showy surfaces of its vibrant packaging--and yes, a sweetness.

"He told no one of his quiet discovery: his uncle and his cousins would have thought he was crazy. America wasn't sweet to them; it was bitter. It was also stony and cold, not to mention dangerous. It was like one of those brick cartons of Green Giant chopped spinach in the freezer bin that few of the regular customers bought..."

It was sad to see the YAish cover of a book like this--don't be misled. This is beautiful, language oriented, thoughtful magical mystery of a book.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ramadan Ramsey is the search of a boy for the father who didn't even know of his existence. Louis Edwards has managed to bring to life his characters, his locations, utilizing some gorgeous prose and some frustrating situations. The eponymous hero, truly an original creation, deserves a sequel.

[johnny ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book was so boring. and "country of the jew" ??? really??? way to alienate your jewish readers.

[Elizabeth Weaver · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an adventure!

I first learned of this book in the New York Times Book Review in August. It caught my attention because it involved the disaster in New Orléans that was Hurricane Katrina. But Katrina is only a small part of Ramadan Ramsey’s adventure. The end of the story finds this young American boy fighting his way through war-torn Syria in search of his father.

You see Ramadan Ramsey’s parents were young when he was conceived in New Orleans. Their flirtation quickly advanced into a relationship, which was interrupted by Mustafah’s abrupt return to Syria. He never knew that he had conceived a child.

This child was Ramadan. He was raised by his maternal grandmother, Mama Joon. The relationship between these two (mature woman and little boy) was extremely close; and Ramadan, though he was filled with anger and a fighting spirit as a young child, became more thoughtful and introspective with the gentle love of Mama Joon.

Louis Edwards is very skilled with language and knows how to turn a clever phrase. I enjoyed the philosophy he throws into the story; I found it stimulating, like having lunch with a clever friend.

I always save my fifth star for books that I want to become a part of my very soul, but I would surely love to give this book a 4.5 star rating. If the story stays with me, I will revisit it and give it the fifth star it deserves.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really liked how some of the characters were presented, and the New Orleans feel. But I got maybe 70-80% through and gave up. I didn't care what happened and the author was wearing me out with the self-conscious cleverness of his sentences. For me, this was an awkward mash-up of hyper-realism (let's witness every thought that wanders through a character's mind) and Candide-like allegory (suspend disbelief and just roll with the idea that a 12-year-old could fly to Istanbul, check into the Ritz, and instantly make dear friends, b/c the author has big things to say about religion? masculinity? something?).

[Jill Bowman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting journey story. Perhaps more interesting if you’re a Young Adult or Middle Grader. Unbelievable, but it works as a fable.
In parts I was put off by the casual stereotyping of Ramadan’s New Orleans family.
3.5

[debra]

This was exhaustingly metaphored, and, IMO, even when insightful became so burdensome as to drown the story. I just don't know how to rate this

[Monica **can't read fast enough** · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 to 3 1/2 stars

Review to come

[Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining premise: a brief liaison between a Syrian immigrant and young woman in New Orleans during Ramadan yields a little boy named for the holy celebration. He is born into a matriarchy overseen with great strength by his grandmother, Mama June, who leveraged her life circumstances into a substantial (if intentionally undefined) pile of money, sufficient to keep her and her favorite grandson going for quite some time.

One of the most refreshing aspects of this book is that it does not treat birth outside of marriage as some sort of unmitigated tragedy but as a blessing, the complication of a father seen as a detriment rather than a help. In this family, there is no shame in children being brought into the world this way; the societal assumption that marriage somehow confers legitimacy on their existence has for some time struck me as rather odd. While we might posit that the presence of more than one parent is helpful to a child (not to mention to the parents), the patriarchal idea that there must be a mother and a father in each family is outdated at best and deeply destructive at worst.

Unfortunately, this book has two major flaws it was very difficult for me to get past. The first is that it is quite simply overwritten. While a bit of playfulness with language is certainly welcome and refreshing, Edwards' tendency to digress into etymological rhyming and flights of fanciful explication becomes tiresome and the reader wishes at several points that he would simply get on with it, already. The second issue is that the trip Ramadan takes in the second half of the book is so implausible as to fail the "jump the shark" test. The idea that he could pull all of this off and so many otherwise sane adults would allow it to happen is simply not believable. While a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is healthy when reading fiction, in a book not clearly a fantasy novel, this level of implausibility serves to detract from the experience.

Still and all, a fairly enjoyable book with solid and unique characterizations; that it could have been much more successful had the author been trying just a little less hard to impress us is a true shame.

[Allison Meakem · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. This was an overly ambitious book that, in my view, did not achieve all it set out to do. It was also a slog to get through. The idea of developing a protagonist defined by the dual tragedies of Hurricane Katrina and the Syrian Civil War is a unique and intriguing one one, but each event occupied relatively little space in the book as a whole, and it was not clear that they shaped Ramadan much at all. Rather, “Ramadan Ramsey” is mostly about the relationship between Ramadan and his grandmother, Mama Joon, but no character—them included!—is ever fully developed. Often, I felt characters’ names were just specks on a page, and that a certain number were just killed off so the author didn’t have to deal with them. I was also particularly bothered by how the non-American characters’ dialogue and speech were presented. The Turkish and Syrian individuals who occupy much of the book’s latter sections “spoke” in overly exaggerated broken English, in a way that was hard to understand, completely unrealistic, and also borderline demeaning. Not to mention that the last chapters of the book are rushed and anticlimactic, as though the author just ran out of ink. So many questions are left unanswered, and so many narrative threads just fizzle out. There is essentially no resolution—the most frustrating thing for a reader.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's only when you sit there with the book hugged to your chest that you really know how you feel about it. Ramadan Ramsey has done that to me now, sitting in the afterglow of the read.

This book reaches out and over cultural, racial, national and religious boundaries, and swipes away societal limitations to reveal all the potentialities that remain in the person of Ramadan Ramsey. This little person, who by the usual methods of judgment, is nothing but a stray. He is an intersection of faiths and race. Abandoned, born on the wrong side of every [insert preferred cliché here], seemingly championed only by the downtrodden and fragile, his future seems lost or at best without hope. Yet armed with his overwhelming desire to find his father, he is ready to face all of it. The journey is amazing, and the story profound. Rather mythic, really.

When I least expected it, Ramadan Ramsey turned it into a moment of the Spirit. I hope we meet again.

A Sincere thanks to Louis Edwards, Amistad and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.
#RamadanRamsey #NetGalley

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful modern epic tale of a 12 year old boy-Ramadan Ramsay- searching the world for the father who doesn't know he exists. He's the son of Alicia and Mustafa, whose uncle was so appalled by their relationship that he sent Mustafa back to Syria. Then, Alicia dies and her mother- Mama Yoon steps in until she too dies. This takes full advantage of the New Orleans setting in the early parts- Hurricane Katrina in particular. Unfortunately for him, his Aunt Clarissa is not one bit happy about him and Ramadan makes the decision to hunt for Mustapha. Yes it's implausible that a 12 year old could travel outside the US to Europe, let alone to Syria, but go with it. There are rewards on each page here, with terrific writing and a sense of derring-do we don't often see. Thanks to edelweiss for the ARC. You will root for Ramadan. Great read.

[Nancy Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

About halfway through, it turned into a YA novel with unlikely scenarios that only a 12-year-old would believe possible.

[John Hilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

The lush prose of the first half of the novel really drew me in, at first. A real novel, crafted with real attention to language as one should. In this awful Goodreads landscape of YA Vampire Fiction and Related Garbage, I felt I was in the hands of real literature here. At first. I loved the attention to Alicia's mannerisms, the smell of New Orleans, the economy of the convenience store, all of the rich characters and their complex motivations ... All the ingredients for something worth spending time on were present and accounted for.

Then, in part two, once Ramadan boards the plane to Istanbul, that all fell away, alas. The second half of the novel hurries through a story that had been patient and even languid until that point, the scenery vanishes almost entirely (in one of the oldest and most amazing cities in the world--and one which I happen to know a little better than the average American), and the secondary characters become caricatures. Ramadan zooms through Turkey with barely a mention of the unique and interesting landscape around him. No contact with land or people or culture, just a rush for a border. The rich proses collapses under the weight of dialect-burdened dialogue.

I, too, found myself speeding through at that point. The climax and denouement were unsatisfying, to boot.

I think what we have here is a story in which the author's skill is abundant when the story is set in New Orleans, a city he presumably knows everything about, and then it is greatly tested when it is set in Istanbul and beyond, a place he knows, it seems, only as well as a tourist would, and possibly less.

A disappointing second act, here. Ultimately, a failed test.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Young Ramadan always knows what he wants, and what he wants most of all is to meet his father, who was sent away before he was born. His mother is Alicia, a young black woman who falls in love with Mustafa, a Syrian immigrant working for his uncle at the local corner store. The sharp-eyed uncle spots Alicia’s baby bump and sends his nephew posthaste back to Syria before the girl’s thuggish relatives decide to punish Mustafa. So Ramadan grows up in New Orleans in a female household, where the women are all single mothers, the apple of his grandmother Mama Joon’s eye. It’s soon 2005 and time for Hurricane Katrina to roll in and set events in motion, when on the same day 5-year-old Ramadan learns a little about his father and Mustafa’s uncle sees the boy for the first time and realizes who he is. More years pass and Ramadan finds himself alone, just about to turn 12, without his mother or grandmother, but well provided for by his grandmother. But he needs to flee his covetous, even murderous, cousins and aunt, so off he goes to Syria to find his father. Never mind that civil war has just broken out in the country and he’s heading into danger. The prose is a little stiff, but the story is entertaining even when it strains credulity. (C’mon, a 12-year-old who doesn’t speak the language flying alone first to Turkey then finding people willing to help slip him into a war-torn country? Nuff said.)

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute comedic novel about a boy born to a mother from New Orleans and many children and different fathers. His father he discovers is a Syrian whose family forced him to return after he impregnated his mom. He grows up wanting to find him and ends up in Turkey where dad is a refugee. More ensures.

[Romana · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half of this book was the slowest burn possible. It was a painful read because it was that damn boring & some days I’d only read a single page. & why did it take SO long to get to the actual plot??

It certainly picked up once the story transitioned to Turkey & Syria but still, a pretty dull read stuffed w/ too many metaphors & nothing to get invested in. The first half was absolutely irredeemable & the end was such a hurried let-down. I regret wasting so much time on this when I could’ve read something halfway decent

[Jake Gómez · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half felt a bit slow, and the interesting childlike narration + constant metaphors were a bit dizzying at times — but it came together in a beautiful adventure of unconditional love and faith

[Donita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this story and the main character, but for some reason it took me longer to read than usual. Some beautiful nuggets to dwell on.

[Barb reads......it ALL! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing! Such a great book!

[Jisoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly a little cringe throughout, nearly "Emily in Paris"-esque and even anti-Black at times?? In spite of myself, I came to love the characters and story, and I secretly cried on the subway during the final chapters.

[Anissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about a half Syrian half Black young man growing up in New Orleans. Themes of family and finding your people. Great character development and really unique writing style. That family was real, like people I've grown up with. The part about Syria was really interesting.

To get an idea of his writing style. This is about the first time the main character, Ramadan, smokes MJ. He really can evoke a feeling:

"As Ramadan reached for the joint, the long-awaited thrill of being invited into the Ramsey fraternity flushed through him, and he saw what looked like pride come over his cousins as he brought the damp tip of the joint to his lips and inhaled the way he had seen them do so many times. The smell of burning herb, generated for the first time by his force, and closer to his face than ever before, was warmer and sweeter than usual. More intoxicating, too, of course--but not as intoxicating as the feeling that he was, at last, being initiated into his own family. In the rising swoon, the headiness of that first hit, he reveled in the suspension of his loneliness. He held the smoke a full five seconds, not wanting to release it, preferring to asphyxiate on the vapors of acceptance, for he was afraid that when he exhaled, this kinship might end."

[The Next · Rating 3 out of 5]

www.thenextgoodbook.com
Ramadan Ramsey by Louis Edwards
383 pages

What’s it about?
It is 1999 and Ramadan Ramsey is 12-years-old and living in New Orleans with his grandmother, Mama Joon. His mother passed away when he was small and he has never known his father. When his grandmother dies and leaves him alone with his Aunt Clarissa (and lots of cousins) he struggles with what to do. Ramadan decides to sneak away and travel around the world to find his father. His unexpected journey is at the heart of this story.

What did it make me think about?
This book is filled with great characters.

Should I read it?
This is a book that I have great admiration for. For me the beautiful, descriptive writing (and the writing is beautiful) could sometimes actually get in the way of the story that Louis Edwards was telling. I feel the plot was sometimes bogged down by all the words... Having said that Mr. Edwards writes some of the best characters. I really liked this book but I would have loved it about 30 pages less.

If you liked this try-
Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

[Lisa Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

REVIEW - 🌟🌟🌟🌟/5 🌟

Currently, I am really enjoying books from cultures other than my own. Think - Girl With the Louding Voice, A Burning, the Bad Muslim Discount, the Henna Artist, and now Ramadan Ramsey.

Synopsis: Ramadan Ramsey begins in 1999 with the moving (and funny) teenage love story of Alicia Ramsey, a native New Orleans African American young woman, and Mustafa Totah, a Syrian immigrant who works in her neighborhood at his uncle’s convenience store. Through a series of familial betrayals, Mustafa returns to Syria unaware that Alicia is carrying his child.

When the baby is born, Alicia names their son Ramadan and raises him with the help of her mother, Mama Joon. But tragedy strikes when the epochal hurricane of 2005 barrels into New Orleans, shattering both the Ramsey and Totah families. Years later, when Ramadan turns twelve, he sets off to find Mustafa. It is an odyssey filled with breathtaking and brilliant adventures that takes Ramadan from the familiar world of NOLA to Istanbul, and finally Aleppo, Syria, where he hopes to unite with the father he has never known.

This story feels to me like a modern “tall tale” or “folk tale” as twelve year old Ramadan travels the world to find his unknown father. You cheer for him as he experiences adventure after adventure, challenge after challenge.

This book is recommended for readers who enjoy classic literature as the writing is very sophisticated. I usually read very quickly, but I slowed down to read and reread sentences in the beginning. If you are a skim and scan reader, this will require more focus, but the writing really adds to the overall feel of the hero's journey. I hope you love it!

Thank you to NetGalley, Louis Edwards and Amistad Publishing for an e-ARC in exchange fo an honest review.

[Marvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s hard to know how to rate this novel. It’s a creative story, ranging from New Oreanhs to Turkey and Syria and absorbing 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the war in Syria along the way, with flashes of beauty and insight, especially in the chapter when three boys–Christian, Muslim, Jew–tour Instanbul and especially the scene in Hagia Sophia. But it never feels real, and way too often the author gets carried away trying too hard to be clever. I’ve long longed for a successor to the cleverness of Tom Robbins, but this doesn’t do it. Instead there are too many sentences like the following: “As he watched this girl who had expressed a complicated desire for him slide a golden [potato] chip into her mouth and silently crunch it with satisfaction, the confrontation of his own mode of denial with her casual air of fulfillment empowered him with the will to act, his low-caloric delirium alchemizing into a jolt of energy, a metabolic burst of courage” (12). Or “If she had been depressed before–and, of course, she had (for what but depression was Ramadan’s twin, the one who had declined birth, the dark one who Mustafa’s absence had impregnated her with as surely as his presence had inseminated her with the light of Ramadan?)--this reality, this majestic flow of death, at once imminent and eminent, had purified her blood with an intravenous efficacy” (93). There’s lots of wordplay and numerous riffs on various topics that just go on way too long and don’t advance the narrative; the 4-page chapter (217-220) encouraging the reader to hop on a plane and travel abroad is a prime example. Still, it has its touching moments.

[Skyler DeYoung · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Have you ever […] jetted off to any foreign land, to fulfill a dream or escape a nightmare - or like Ramadan, thrillingly, to do both at once?

If so, then you have an idea what taking flight incites in him. How a continental shift can promote a constitutional one. You know the change that being set in motion can, well, set in motion. You know how motion can precipitate emotion. Moving is moving. You may not have devised - who has? - a method for calculating the degree to which kinetics stimulates the intellect, physics modifies psychology, but you know all too well that the distance between where you disembark and where you land is only crudely measurable in miles or kilometers, and more accurately mapped in feelings and revelations.

And if you haven’t been anywhere, well - what the hell are you waiting for? A hurricane? A war? A literal shot in the arm? A cure for the plague that is fear? An invitation?

Birth is your invite! Breath, your passport! Bravery, your visa!

In a way, the notion of birth, earthly or otherwise, is precisely the point. Home is a womb. It nurtures. But imagine never pushing forth into the world, your growth inhibited by habitat, the comfy confines of mother’s accommodating girth. Wouldn’t persistent satiation feed a need? Wouldn’t nourishment, without growth, nurture a longing? Create, in effect, an appetite for hunger? Thus, your stasis, replete with life’s essential nutrients, would equal starvation. Feast would become famine. With the usual dire consequences. To remain fetal would be fatal.”

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a New Orleans story. And it's a Syrian story. I wouldn't have thought to put those two things together, but they work so well here in Ramadan Ramsey.

Everything in the New Orleans part of the story is spot on. Edwards captures life in the Crescent City, especially life in the Tremé neighborhood. It's harsh and heartbreaking and also loving and heartwarming. Our main character (who isn't even born when we start) is loved intensely by his grandmother, Mama Joon. The city is portrayed perfectly, warts and all, but also great beauty and joy.

Then it becomes something of an adventure story for 12-year-old Ramadan. Some of this stretches disbelief but it's worth suspending for the sake of a good story. The story and the situations are touching - Ramadan meets kind people almost everywhere he goes - but it's never cloying or twee.

The story ends with a resolution for Ramadan - but you want more, you want to know what comes next.

It's a beautiful book. My one critique, an unusual one for me, is that the author is very, very descriptive. He writes beautifully...but goes on a little long at times in his descriptions (and I love descriptive writing!). But it's also lovely to read someone who crafts his language and uses metaphors that ring true.

Louis Edwards is an author to watch!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a temporary digital advanced copy of Ramadan Ramsey by Louis Edwards from NetGalley, Amistad, and the author in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Ramadan Ramsey is born to Alicia Ramsey, a native of New Orleans, and Mustafah Tota, a Syrian refugee. Due to his sudden departure, Mustafah does not learn of Alicia's pregnacy. Named after the holy month of fasting in which he was conceived, Ramadan ends up being raised by his grandmother Mama Joon due to the loss of his mother. Faced with a life or death situation, Ramadan leaves New Orleans to find his father in Syria. An epic journey of hope, friendship, love, and bravery will take teenage Ramadan across the world to his paternal family.

I will forever wish Goodreads allowed half stars because I would rate Ramadan Ramsey 4.5 stars. I enjoyed Ramadan Ramsey, especially Ramadan's story. I found it extremely difficult to put down the book during his time with Mama Joon and journey to Syria. Louis Edwards' writing is beautiful, highly sophisticated, and his sentence structure is often quite long. It took a few pages to get used to his style of writing; however, once I did, it was worth the momentary struggle.