What do you think?
Rate this book
Losing Face
A stunning, thought-provoking novel about facing up to your family and your future, Losing Face deals with timely issues around consent and inherited trauma.
Joey is young, indifferent. He’s drifting around Western Sydney unaware that his passivity is leading him astray. And then one day he is involved in a violent crime, one that threatens to upend his life entirely.
Elaine, his grandmother, is a proud Lebanese woman with problems of her own. When Joey is arrested, she is desperate to save face and hold herself together. In her family, history repeats itself, vices come and go, and uncovering long-buried secrets isn’t always cathartic.
This gripping and hard-hitting novel reveals the richness and complexity of contemporary Australian life and tests the idea that facing consequences will make us better people.
Joey is young, indifferent. He’s drifting around Western Sydney unaware that his passivity is leading him astray. And then one day he is involved in a violent crime, one that threatens to upend his life entirely.
Elaine, his grandmother, is a proud Lebanese woman with problems of her own. When Joey is arrested, she is desperate to save face and hold herself together. In her family, history repeats itself, vices come and go, and uncovering long-buried secrets isn’t always cathartic.
This gripping and hard-hitting novel reveals the richness and complexity of contemporary Australian life and tests the idea that facing consequences will make us better people.
244 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 3, 2022
15 people are currently reading
1088 people want to read
About the author
George Haddad
4 books23 followersGeorge Haddad is a writer, artist and academic. His two books, Populate and Perish and Losing Face, have both won awards, including The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist prize. He is a lecturer at the Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 90 reviews
May 12, 2022
Already know this is the best book I’m going to read in 2022. As a Lebanese Australian, it’s like Haddad reached into my mind and showed me things I hadn’t realised were there the entire time. Every word transported me. Hoping my teta makes me snizzle this weekend 💖
May 22, 2023
2023 Miles Franklin Longlist
I was beginning to hear stirrings that this was good and boy is it ever. If this doesn't make the MF shortlist, I'll eat my hat.
A truly authentic feeling contemporary story mainly about a young man in the Lebanese community in Western Sydney. Close to his family members, particularly his grandmother who has her own narrative voice. When a crime is committed he is drawn in and issues of consent and toxic masculinity along with a possibility of racial profiling comes into play. Our legal system doesn't look great in all of this. I loved the male narrators voice in the audiobook and the female narrator was ok but her Australian accent really did not ring true for a Lebanese grandmother from Western Sydney but the writing is so strong that the character's personality still shone through. I think I'll return to the written page for this because some of the turns of phrases and the descriptive writing is excellent. Loved it.
I was beginning to hear stirrings that this was good and boy is it ever. If this doesn't make the MF shortlist, I'll eat my hat.
A truly authentic feeling contemporary story mainly about a young man in the Lebanese community in Western Sydney. Close to his family members, particularly his grandmother who has her own narrative voice. When a crime is committed he is drawn in and issues of consent and toxic masculinity along with a possibility of racial profiling comes into play. Our legal system doesn't look great in all of this. I loved the male narrators voice in the audiobook and the female narrator was ok but her Australian accent really did not ring true for a Lebanese grandmother from Western Sydney but the writing is so strong that the character's personality still shone through. I think I'll return to the written page for this because some of the turns of phrases and the descriptive writing is excellent. Loved it.
September 16, 2023
An interesting, powerful novel about an Australian immigrant family, from the perspectives of Joey, a young nineteen year old man and his gambling addicted Lebanese grandmother, Elaine. Joey inadvertently finds himself with a group of young people around his age and the rape of a young woman. All are high on drugs. A court case ensues and Joey’s family and relatives lose face with Joey’s name in the newspapers.
A very engaging, realist novel with interesting characters and good plot momentum.
This book was long listed for the 2023 Miles Franklin award.
A very engaging, realist novel with interesting characters and good plot momentum.
This book was long listed for the 2023 Miles Franklin award.
April 5, 2022
(May contain spoilers)
Raised by his single mother, Joey lives a half-life of mixed cultural parentage and half-truths, drifting and directionless as he finishes high school.
Far too easily, he is caught up in a situation that is frighteningly familiar from news reports, the gang rape of an unsuspecting girl, Lisa, who is coerced into accompanying five young men to an isolated location, where she is raped by three of them.
While Joey’s best friend, Kyri, escapes the scene, Joey remains, totally stoned, unable to make decisions or think clearly about the possible consequences of his presence at a crime scene.
Spell-binding in its honesty and directness, Georg Haddad’s telling of this story reads like true crime.
Yet it is far more personal. Through Haddad’s prose, Joey could be our own son, Tatya Elaine our own grandmother navigating life in a new country, and Amal the mother we sometimes are, struggling to find her own life as she raises her two boys.
Under charges due to his presence at the scene, ironically, we guess Joey’s sexual preference even before he does (as does the victim/survivor, Lisa). Used as a pawn in Boxer’s cruel play for revenge, we feel Joey’s vulnerability, buckling under the pressure to be someone he cannot be, to live up to expectations that he feels unable to fufill.
Like many teens, Joey seeks acceptance and consolation however he can find it, maintaining his strong connection to family and seeking a love that gives him the freedom to be himself.
Multi-layered, like any good story, Joey’s story is powerfully told by Haddad. It’s not only deals with the difficulties of growing up in multi-cultural Australia, but it has a wider focus on the crucible of youth where critical decision making can have lifelong consequences (also illustrated by the story of Joey’s father).
Haddad raises big questions about consent, for both young women and men, the story by default giving some foundational building blocks necessary for good decision making.
Through Haddad’s luminous prose, we become the silent fellow travellers beside these teenagers as they walk along the narrow path towards adulthood, deep valleys of despair on either side.
How do we appease the spirit of the desert, Ma’raka, that threatens to steal the souls of our young men? How do we save them from the abyss of despair? How do we help them find meaning?
‘Life ain’t no crystal stair’ said Langston Hughes.
In many ways, this story raises more questions than it answers.
There are no glib answers provided as to how to navigate the journey, nor perfect models of what it means to be a good man or woman. Yet there are clues. While there is no ultimate happy ending, there is hope, shrouded in the reality of lessons learned by experience, yet with existing vulnerabilities remaining.
And there is humanness. Lots of it.
Thanks to UQP for the advance reading copy.
Raised by his single mother, Joey lives a half-life of mixed cultural parentage and half-truths, drifting and directionless as he finishes high school.
Far too easily, he is caught up in a situation that is frighteningly familiar from news reports, the gang rape of an unsuspecting girl, Lisa, who is coerced into accompanying five young men to an isolated location, where she is raped by three of them.
While Joey’s best friend, Kyri, escapes the scene, Joey remains, totally stoned, unable to make decisions or think clearly about the possible consequences of his presence at a crime scene.
Spell-binding in its honesty and directness, Georg Haddad’s telling of this story reads like true crime.
Yet it is far more personal. Through Haddad’s prose, Joey could be our own son, Tatya Elaine our own grandmother navigating life in a new country, and Amal the mother we sometimes are, struggling to find her own life as she raises her two boys.
Under charges due to his presence at the scene, ironically, we guess Joey’s sexual preference even before he does (as does the victim/survivor, Lisa). Used as a pawn in Boxer’s cruel play for revenge, we feel Joey’s vulnerability, buckling under the pressure to be someone he cannot be, to live up to expectations that he feels unable to fufill.
Like many teens, Joey seeks acceptance and consolation however he can find it, maintaining his strong connection to family and seeking a love that gives him the freedom to be himself.
Multi-layered, like any good story, Joey’s story is powerfully told by Haddad. It’s not only deals with the difficulties of growing up in multi-cultural Australia, but it has a wider focus on the crucible of youth where critical decision making can have lifelong consequences (also illustrated by the story of Joey’s father).
Haddad raises big questions about consent, for both young women and men, the story by default giving some foundational building blocks necessary for good decision making.
Through Haddad’s luminous prose, we become the silent fellow travellers beside these teenagers as they walk along the narrow path towards adulthood, deep valleys of despair on either side.
How do we appease the spirit of the desert, Ma’raka, that threatens to steal the souls of our young men? How do we save them from the abyss of despair? How do we help them find meaning?
‘Life ain’t no crystal stair’ said Langston Hughes.
In many ways, this story raises more questions than it answers.
There are no glib answers provided as to how to navigate the journey, nor perfect models of what it means to be a good man or woman. Yet there are clues. While there is no ultimate happy ending, there is hope, shrouded in the reality of lessons learned by experience, yet with existing vulnerabilities remaining.
And there is humanness. Lots of it.
Thanks to UQP for the advance reading copy.
February 17, 2023
Book club book. Didn't grab me overall - and while I found the story compelling enough at times, it was honestly a slog to finish.
May 26, 2024
careful and so so beautiful
June 24, 2022
4.5 ⭐️
A well written, captivating story. I liked how the story is told from 2 perspectives - a young Lebanese boy and his struggles as he enters adulthood, and his grandma who is grieving the loss of her husband.
I listed to the audiobook and was annoyed by the pronunciation of ‘ask’ as ‘aks’ so not sure if this was deliberate or not 😆
A well written, captivating story. I liked how the story is told from 2 perspectives - a young Lebanese boy and his struggles as he enters adulthood, and his grandma who is grieving the loss of her husband.
I listed to the audiobook and was annoyed by the pronunciation of ‘ask’ as ‘aks’ so not sure if this was deliberate or not 😆
December 6, 2022
Rep: Lebanese Australian gay mc, Lebanese mc
CWs: drug use, rape
CWs: drug use, rape
June 18, 2023
This is exceptional storytelling. Haddad draws the reader in to the listless world of Joey, whose sense of powerlessness and indifference overwhelms him. Joey's world - of casual work, casual drugs, and casual friends - feels increasingly claustrophobic as he tries half-heartedly, to find a way into something more meaningful to him only to leave it a little too late.
This is a specific story, and part of that story is the world of third-generation migrants raised in the bounded realities of Western Sydney. Joey's options are constrained by intense structural racism and also by the inheritance of cultural displacement. Elaine, Joey's grandmother, also moves through the book with ennui, but is far more conscious of the potential impacts of it. We see how she carved a life, as people do, accepting what she can control and what she can't, and even as she manages - or attempts to - a gambling addiction, she understands the potential cost of the escape.
For a book which deals by implication with some highly politicised events, this story largely eschews explicitly political answers or polemicising. As someone who was living in Western Sydney around the time of the media frenzy around gang rape - which defined for years how millions of people people saw thousands of people based on the actions of a dozen - I was initially cautious about a book centred on that particular form of toxic masculinity - but the focus is less on that big story than the small ones. This novel weaves individual and social culpability into something that becomes very much about being human, and what taking charge - and responsibility - might look like. I'm still unsure what I think of it, which is a good thing.
This is a specific story, and part of that story is the world of third-generation migrants raised in the bounded realities of Western Sydney. Joey's options are constrained by intense structural racism and also by the inheritance of cultural displacement. Elaine, Joey's grandmother, also moves through the book with ennui, but is far more conscious of the potential impacts of it. We see how she carved a life, as people do, accepting what she can control and what she can't, and even as she manages - or attempts to - a gambling addiction, she understands the potential cost of the escape.
For a book which deals by implication with some highly politicised events, this story largely eschews explicitly political answers or polemicising. As someone who was living in Western Sydney around the time of the media frenzy around gang rape - which defined for years how millions of people people saw thousands of people based on the actions of a dozen - I was initially cautious about a book centred on that particular form of toxic masculinity - but the focus is less on that big story than the small ones. This novel weaves individual and social culpability into something that becomes very much about being human, and what taking charge - and responsibility - might look like. I'm still unsure what I think of it, which is a good thing.
June 24, 2022
A four star read set in Western Sydney featuring Lebanese migrants and challenging Australia’s multi-cultural fabric, the legal system Vs justice, cultural heritage (the apple doesn’t fall far front the tree), social class and male dominance. There’s a lot to take in.
Are they really struggling with culture differences? Or embracing the offerings from a strangers country?
Western Sydney Vs inner Sydney… who knew there was a glass divide.
One thing piqued me and sadly impacted the read … I had the audio version the male reader said Arksed? Really? Seriously? Or was that in itself meant as a deliberate jibe.
“There’s no shame in shovelling shit.”
Are they really struggling with culture differences? Or embracing the offerings from a strangers country?
Western Sydney Vs inner Sydney… who knew there was a glass divide.
One thing piqued me and sadly impacted the read … I had the audio version the male reader said Arksed? Really? Seriously? Or was that in itself meant as a deliberate jibe.
“There’s no shame in shovelling shit.”
August 7, 2023
Must read, very very good book
June 24, 2023
Losing Face is a marvellous presentation of growing up and growing old as a member of a migrant Lebanese family in today's Western Sydney.
Joey is nineteen, searching for but failing to find anything to make him feel good about himself. To say that he finds himself in trouble is an understatement and I fear that Joey is emblematic of too many young men of today.
Eileen is Joey's sixty three year old Grandmother who, like Joey, finds herself locked into a way of life from which she must escape.
There is tension aplenty in the story involving the tight-knit family group which surrounds Joey and Eileen. Family relationships and Culture figure prominently in the novel as do modern day dilemmas concerning addiction, consent and the questioning of one's own sexual orientation.
Losing Face is a really satisfying, novel of life in a contemporary Australian suburban setting. I would not be surprised to see another book featuring the same cast of characters and I would welcome the chance to meet them again.
Joey is nineteen, searching for but failing to find anything to make him feel good about himself. To say that he finds himself in trouble is an understatement and I fear that Joey is emblematic of too many young men of today.
Eileen is Joey's sixty three year old Grandmother who, like Joey, finds herself locked into a way of life from which she must escape.
There is tension aplenty in the story involving the tight-knit family group which surrounds Joey and Eileen. Family relationships and Culture figure prominently in the novel as do modern day dilemmas concerning addiction, consent and the questioning of one's own sexual orientation.
Losing Face is a really satisfying, novel of life in a contemporary Australian suburban setting. I would not be surprised to see another book featuring the same cast of characters and I would welcome the chance to meet them again.
March 31, 2025
Yes yes yes yes yes. I loved the changing of perspective, the Aussie slang, this book made me anxious and angry and sad and confused. I thought it was greatttttrt
August 9, 2022
This is my first novel by George Haddad and it won’t be the last. This is beautifully written. The characters are rich and vivid and set in western Sydney. In places that I grew up in, with characters that I went to school with. Real characters who could be our grandmother, our friend or brother, cousin. The tension that is created leading up to the second half of the book was intense. As though you know what’s going to happen before the main character does. To add to this, you kind of guess the main characters sexual persuasion before he does. Joey is our main character, raised by a single mother, of mixed cultural parentage and has been drifting after high school and with no direction or sense of the future. Highly recommend this book.
September 27, 2022
Powerful writing about deeply passionate forces at work. Setting is western Sydney, among Lebanese community, with complicated levels of honour, loyalty, and hierarchy to be respected. Young Joey is an appealing character caught up in a web of all the above. Packs a punch, I liked it a lot.
June 8, 2023
WTFFFF this was amazing i was literally just so excited to get in the car and listen to this, I’ve realised i love a court case story because of the suspense but damn it rang so true fml everyone should read this
August 30, 2022
As someone from south west Sydney I could really visualise every location in this book. Enjoyed the back and forth of characters. Well written. Would recommend- especially to anyone from Sydney.
August 6, 2024
Joey’s story is compelling and thought provoking. The books is a slow cooker, and it takes a while to get into it. Elaine’s parts were a bit flunky and unnecessary. I didn’t think the relationship between these two characters was strong enough to have their own POVs, Joey’s would have been enough
January 10, 2023
The first book club read of the year, and it is a doozy. Losing Face is George Haddad's first full length novel and it is superb. Firstly, Haddad's prose style is snappy and authentic, he hasn't tried anything too stylistically audacious, and the novel is all the better for it. The narrative is well constructed and deals with such weighty themes as rape culture, toxic masculinity, failure to launch, the nature of friendship and generational dysfunction and trauma. If it all sounds bleak, well perhaps it is to a degree, but Haddad writes so well that the story is absorbing and is therefore a pleasure to read. The main protagonist, Joey Harb, is a nineteen-year old lost in Sydney's western suburbs, barely holding down a job at Woolworths and hanging with his best mates, Kyri and Emma and also an assortment of fuck-ups content to put life on the back-burner in order to chase the next high. There's Joey's extended family, his mother Amal, brother Alex and, most significantly his grandmother, Elaine, who is an important character in her own right. All of the characters are totally authentic, it's as if you are there among them, part of the family, or out of it on drugs at a dance festival. Haddad gets the dialogue totally right, in particular the interactions between Elaine and her Lebanese friends and between Joey and his mates, forever on their phones and using slang to express their inarticulate trains of thought.
The reader gets to know Joey quite readily, which makes his inevitable descent into a terrible situation an ever present threat. When this part of the book begins the dread is palpable. The sexual assault scenes are brilliantly written, being both too much to bear and unputdownable. Joey's life is forever changed due to his naiveté and lack of awareness of the severity of the situation he finds himself in. The aftermath is compelling in its inevitably. Haddad cleverly weaves many shades of grey into the narrative, both in terms of Joey's situation and that of his grandmother's, Elaine, who has her own dysfunctions to deal with. The court scenes are mainly told through her eyes, adding layers of pathos to an unfortunately familiar tragic story. Most impressive is the denouement, in which Joey still finds it hard to find a way forward beyond the kind of aimlessness and lifestyle that endangered him in the first place. There's a path to redemption, but it's uncertain. Losing Face should be read by all of the Joey's out there, but they'd never read such a novel. Perhaps Losing Face should be part of the school curriculum, it would be a challenging but worthwhile read for teenagers growing up in the me-too era.
The reader gets to know Joey quite readily, which makes his inevitable descent into a terrible situation an ever present threat. When this part of the book begins the dread is palpable. The sexual assault scenes are brilliantly written, being both too much to bear and unputdownable. Joey's life is forever changed due to his naiveté and lack of awareness of the severity of the situation he finds himself in. The aftermath is compelling in its inevitably. Haddad cleverly weaves many shades of grey into the narrative, both in terms of Joey's situation and that of his grandmother's, Elaine, who has her own dysfunctions to deal with. The court scenes are mainly told through her eyes, adding layers of pathos to an unfortunately familiar tragic story. Most impressive is the denouement, in which Joey still finds it hard to find a way forward beyond the kind of aimlessness and lifestyle that endangered him in the first place. There's a path to redemption, but it's uncertain. Losing Face should be read by all of the Joey's out there, but they'd never read such a novel. Perhaps Losing Face should be part of the school curriculum, it would be a challenging but worthwhile read for teenagers growing up in the me-too era.
September 18, 2022
Losing Face begins with a fable. In the desert in time immemorial women and the children they look after are pestered by a djinn while their menfolk are away. To get rid of the djinn, the women make a Faustian bargain. The djinn promises to leave them alone if she can have the boy children’s manhoods. The grateful women agree and the children appear unharmed, but when the boys get older they find that they "didn't grow beards", "they didn't quite develop enough gusto to heard the animals or lift the heavy sacks". It sounds like a curse, but over the course of Losing Face you may come to wonder otherwise in this deeply unsettling tale of masculinity and the harm it can do to others. Read more on my blog.
August 11, 2022
Another great gritty powerful Western Sydney novel. Wonderfully written with a storyline that rings true. Very difficult to put down, but at the same time very difficult to keep reading. Three dimensional characters facing into awful life choices. Very highly recommended. Not quite 5 stars because sometimes I felt the author was stepping out of the book to explain Muslim or middle eastern culture to me, rather than subtly incorporating it into the action or dialogue.
May 20, 2023
It was good, i really love elaine and joey was good, but the dad coming in was just really random and i didn’t really like how boxer getting off scot free was written, like the guy planned and committed a rape and forced joey, it just felt like it wasn’t touched on enough. I really enjoyed the setting, as a 19yo living in sydney it was quite cute to read about another 19yo in contemporary sydney, and i’m excited to read whatever comes out next, maybe not another rape trial book though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 25, 2022
This gritty look at urban life is real and unadorned by any stylistic flourishes. Brilliantly written and with no easy answers nor a simplistic ending, it is a gem from a new Australian writer. An incredible debut that captures the essence and authenticity of the migrant experience. Outstanding.
October 18, 2023
This novel didn’t seem very sophisticated. It explores pseudo heavy themes in a contrived manner. The dialogue is not realistic - especially during the court scene (which realistically could have been cut altogether). Disappointing.
July 29, 2022
The characters are so vivid that I’m almost certain I’ve met them all at least once.
December 18, 2023
Towards the end of this novel, Tayta Elaine gives her 19-year-old grandson Joey a serve! Joey has been charged with indecent assault. “We shut up because we know same thing happening to women everywhere. We know that man’s hand gonna take thousand of years to take off our throat. So we keep quiet, stay waiting. If we yell in the village, nothing gonna change. You thinking men are not so bad any more, they don’t think like this any more, but I tell you something, Joey. Deep in the mind any man from all time, no matter what they like to fuck – women, other men, goats – deep in the mind, they still believe woman is weaker than man.”
This is a novel about masculinity, especially about how this plays out in the Western suburbs of Sydney. Joey seems directionless, adrift, and confused about his sexuality. He actually comes across as being quite immature and passive. The author notes that Joey likes his banh mi with extra chilli, “because it numbed his mouth and he liked numbness”. There is a sort of hapless nihilism at play here – and its insinuated that it affects both Joey and the loose group of guys that he hangs around with.
Here's a bit from Joey’s thought processes: “He panicked. Why wasn’t he off at uni studying something that would make him something, dating someone, driving a nice car? The answer burnt clear as day – because he was an idiot. Because he was a weakling.”
Joey and his best friend Kyri go out one Friday night with a guy named Boxer and another guy who is an even worse bully than Boxer. :The four of them pick up a young woman, Lisa, on the train, drugs are involved, and they sexually assault her. “What had been charming and engaging sketch of life in a particular community now coheres into a narrative charged with moral jeopardy.” (https://shawjonathan.com/2022/09/07/t...)
What makes for interesting discussion is the extent of Joey’s culpability in the crime – he is off his face on drugs and, while he does not instigate the crime, he does nothing to stop it. His part is less serious than his friends but he is still part of a sexual assault. Reviewers have been a bit divided about this element – its worth reading Bri Lee’s review (https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2...) – and also this commentary (https://shawjonathan.com/2022/09/07/t...).
From a reviewer: “Where’s Lisa in all this? The novel resists giving us her perspective. “It felt completely invasive and futile to wonder these things,” Elaine tells herself when she thinks about the girl. Later she wants to find Lisa on social media and tell her that Joey isn’t a bad guy. “You’re making this about Joey,” Joey’s brother Alex counsels, “You’re forgetting that she is the victim”. His father Simons warns that it’s “a dangerous thought” for Joey to worry about how Lisa is doing, “It makes the victim’s experience about you”. It is this choice to absent Lisa after the assault on her that gives Losing Face its lingering power.”
(https://jameshwhitmorereviews.com/202...)
The book evokes life in the western suburbs really well. I suspect I would have enjoyed it even more if I was more familiar with the area. “…little details that vividly place the narrative in Sydney’s west: the top-of-the-line Range Rovers and Mercedes four wheelers in Greenacre, a suburb “trying too hard to play catch-up with other parts of Sydney”; the queue-jumping in the barbershops of Bankstown; the bubble tea craze in Canley Vale…” (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...) I agreed with this reviewer: “In this vein, Haddad has written something of a universal truth for a particular type of Sydney sub-culture, embodied in a character whose mistakes are brought on by a life lived at the intersections of identity, the lack of role models who have navigated the same struggles of in-betweenness, and the familial tensions that are complicated by traditions and debts traced back to the old country.”
This is a novel about masculinity, especially about how this plays out in the Western suburbs of Sydney. Joey seems directionless, adrift, and confused about his sexuality. He actually comes across as being quite immature and passive. The author notes that Joey likes his banh mi with extra chilli, “because it numbed his mouth and he liked numbness”. There is a sort of hapless nihilism at play here – and its insinuated that it affects both Joey and the loose group of guys that he hangs around with.
Here's a bit from Joey’s thought processes: “He panicked. Why wasn’t he off at uni studying something that would make him something, dating someone, driving a nice car? The answer burnt clear as day – because he was an idiot. Because he was a weakling.”
Joey and his best friend Kyri go out one Friday night with a guy named Boxer and another guy who is an even worse bully than Boxer. :The four of them pick up a young woman, Lisa, on the train, drugs are involved, and they sexually assault her. “What had been charming and engaging sketch of life in a particular community now coheres into a narrative charged with moral jeopardy.” (https://shawjonathan.com/2022/09/07/t...)
What makes for interesting discussion is the extent of Joey’s culpability in the crime – he is off his face on drugs and, while he does not instigate the crime, he does nothing to stop it. His part is less serious than his friends but he is still part of a sexual assault. Reviewers have been a bit divided about this element – its worth reading Bri Lee’s review (https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2...) – and also this commentary (https://shawjonathan.com/2022/09/07/t...).
From a reviewer: “Where’s Lisa in all this? The novel resists giving us her perspective. “It felt completely invasive and futile to wonder these things,” Elaine tells herself when she thinks about the girl. Later she wants to find Lisa on social media and tell her that Joey isn’t a bad guy. “You’re making this about Joey,” Joey’s brother Alex counsels, “You’re forgetting that she is the victim”. His father Simons warns that it’s “a dangerous thought” for Joey to worry about how Lisa is doing, “It makes the victim’s experience about you”. It is this choice to absent Lisa after the assault on her that gives Losing Face its lingering power.”
(https://jameshwhitmorereviews.com/202...)
The book evokes life in the western suburbs really well. I suspect I would have enjoyed it even more if I was more familiar with the area. “…little details that vividly place the narrative in Sydney’s west: the top-of-the-line Range Rovers and Mercedes four wheelers in Greenacre, a suburb “trying too hard to play catch-up with other parts of Sydney”; the queue-jumping in the barbershops of Bankstown; the bubble tea craze in Canley Vale…” (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...) I agreed with this reviewer: “In this vein, Haddad has written something of a universal truth for a particular type of Sydney sub-culture, embodied in a character whose mistakes are brought on by a life lived at the intersections of identity, the lack of role models who have navigated the same struggles of in-betweenness, and the familial tensions that are complicated by traditions and debts traced back to the old country.”
May 11, 2025
This one got under my skin. Not in a grand, tear-sodden epiphany way. More like a hangover that keeps whispering moral failure into your ear long after the music stops. George Haddad’s “Losing Face” is quietly brutal, gorgeously written and depressingly convincing. I mean that as a compliment.
The plot’s deceptively simple: Joey, a young Lebanese-Australian bloke in western Sydney, is drifting through the wreckage of post-school life with all the urgency of a houseplant. His days are split between stacking shelves, half-hearted gym sessions, drug-fuelled sessions with his mate Kyri and getting doted on by his formidable grandma, Elaine, while also trying not to disappoint his tightly wound mother, Amal. Emotionally, he’s trapped in a fog: ashamed of his poor Arabic, confused about his sexuality, and slowly being pulled into a violent sexual crime he doesn’t initiate, but doesn’t stop either. It’s the sort of plot that would be mishandled by a lesser writer; flattened into a clumsy “lesson” about toxic masculinity and cultural tension. But Haddad’s not here to preach. He’s here to quietly demolish you.
Joey is one of the most frustratingly believable protagonists I’ve read in a while. He doesn’t do much. Mostly, he watches. Fails to act. Doesn’t speak when it matters. And it’s infuriating. You want to grab him by the collar and scream do something. But that’s the point. This isn’t a hero’s journey. It’s a slow-burn moral implosion. Joey’s passivity doesn’t excuse him. it damns him. And Haddad refuses to let us look away.
The alternating chapters between Joey and Elaine are a stroke of genius. Elaine’s voice crackles with anger, resilience and old-world trauma, the kind that gets passed down whether you like it or not. Between the two of them, Haddad stitches together a multigenerational exploration of addiction, abandonment and the slow, grinding weight of being told to shut up and take it. It’s all here: masculinity, diaspora, class, grief, sex, shame. The holy trinity of Australian suburbia and its favourite poisons.
What really guts you is how the novel handles rape culture. It doesn’t treat it as a plot device. It doesn’t lean into spectacle. There’s no grand statement. Just a scene - disturbingly plausible - in a public park, where a young woman is led away and no one says a word. Joey clocks that something’s wrong. He knows. And he stays silent. That silence becomes the novel’s most haunting sound. Haddad doesn’t shout about consent. Chuck in drugs and peer pressure, and we're in believibly murky water. Still, he manages to effectively shows you what it looks like when it’s absent, and lets you sit in that discomfort. No moral-of-the-story monologue is required. Just dread.
If there’s a complaint to be made, it’s that Joey doesn’t grow. He doesn’t emerge enlightened, fists clenched, ready to fight the patriarchy. He limps forward, slightly less lost, maybe. That’s the only kind of hope this book believes in; the fragile, unmarketable kind that comes with just surviving the day without screwing everything up. Honestly, that feels more truthful than most redemption arcs I’ve read.
“Losing Face” isn’t your standard coming-of-age tale. There’s no soaring final act, no lessons neatly learned. Just a young man at the crossroads of culture, class and identity, fucking up and trying - clumsily, belatedly - to be better. There’s something raw and necessary about that. It’s not trying to be profound. It just is.
Four and a half stars. Haddad doesn’t blink. Neither should you.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2
The plot’s deceptively simple: Joey, a young Lebanese-Australian bloke in western Sydney, is drifting through the wreckage of post-school life with all the urgency of a houseplant. His days are split between stacking shelves, half-hearted gym sessions, drug-fuelled sessions with his mate Kyri and getting doted on by his formidable grandma, Elaine, while also trying not to disappoint his tightly wound mother, Amal. Emotionally, he’s trapped in a fog: ashamed of his poor Arabic, confused about his sexuality, and slowly being pulled into a violent sexual crime he doesn’t initiate, but doesn’t stop either. It’s the sort of plot that would be mishandled by a lesser writer; flattened into a clumsy “lesson” about toxic masculinity and cultural tension. But Haddad’s not here to preach. He’s here to quietly demolish you.
Joey is one of the most frustratingly believable protagonists I’ve read in a while. He doesn’t do much. Mostly, he watches. Fails to act. Doesn’t speak when it matters. And it’s infuriating. You want to grab him by the collar and scream do something. But that’s the point. This isn’t a hero’s journey. It’s a slow-burn moral implosion. Joey’s passivity doesn’t excuse him. it damns him. And Haddad refuses to let us look away.
The alternating chapters between Joey and Elaine are a stroke of genius. Elaine’s voice crackles with anger, resilience and old-world trauma, the kind that gets passed down whether you like it or not. Between the two of them, Haddad stitches together a multigenerational exploration of addiction, abandonment and the slow, grinding weight of being told to shut up and take it. It’s all here: masculinity, diaspora, class, grief, sex, shame. The holy trinity of Australian suburbia and its favourite poisons.
What really guts you is how the novel handles rape culture. It doesn’t treat it as a plot device. It doesn’t lean into spectacle. There’s no grand statement. Just a scene - disturbingly plausible - in a public park, where a young woman is led away and no one says a word. Joey clocks that something’s wrong. He knows. And he stays silent. That silence becomes the novel’s most haunting sound. Haddad doesn’t shout about consent. Chuck in drugs and peer pressure, and we're in believibly murky water. Still, he manages to effectively shows you what it looks like when it’s absent, and lets you sit in that discomfort. No moral-of-the-story monologue is required. Just dread.
If there’s a complaint to be made, it’s that Joey doesn’t grow. He doesn’t emerge enlightened, fists clenched, ready to fight the patriarchy. He limps forward, slightly less lost, maybe. That’s the only kind of hope this book believes in; the fragile, unmarketable kind that comes with just surviving the day without screwing everything up. Honestly, that feels more truthful than most redemption arcs I’ve read.
“Losing Face” isn’t your standard coming-of-age tale. There’s no soaring final act, no lessons neatly learned. Just a young man at the crossroads of culture, class and identity, fucking up and trying - clumsily, belatedly - to be better. There’s something raw and necessary about that. It’s not trying to be profound. It just is.
Four and a half stars. Haddad doesn’t blink. Neither should you.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2
February 13, 2025
Long listed for the Miles Franklin and with a rating of nearly 4 starts - really?
It would’ve been worth 2 stars, maybe 3 at best until the point of the trial commencing and boy, it went downhill fast. I wonder what lawyer the editor liaised with (if they did, in fact, liaise with anyone) about the specifics of the legal process. Some patently obvious legal unlikelihoods I noticed:
1. Kiri left the scene and wasn’t ever engaged in the sexual assault or even present. How in the world did his charge even get past the committal stage?
2. Similarly, how did Joey’s get past committal? On the victim’s own evidence, he didn’t assault her and they were both affected by drugs.
3. Plenty of trials run with much more media attention than the case in the book with juries. To suggest a jury would be dispensed with in a case like this is laughable.
4. The trial was not joint and instead the Court held a trial for every single accused. Very unlikely.
5. No evidence called from the victim by either the prosecution or Joey? LOL, in what world would that ever happen, particularly when the entire case turns on the victim’s recount?!
6. No evidence from anyone on the prosecution side except the one police officer who took a report from the victim after 30 minutes? LOL.
7. Joey makes a ‘statement’ when he is giving evidence. In no reality would a person giving evidence, much less an accused, be permitted to speak freely in the box and make personal statements before sentencing. That is a ridiculous inclusion.
8. The inconsistencies in how the prosecution applied the facts were so incredibly obvious and never even remarked on. The victim couldn’t consent because of the effect of the drugs on her but Joey, who had taken the exact same drugs in the same context, could? I mean, really.
9. The only evidence called by Joey is his himself. He doesn’t call, for example, Kiri to give evidence about what happened or anyone to speak to the fear the Plaintiff reasonably held about Haz. Ridiculous.
10. No other evidence tendered save for police report. LOL. DNA evidence? CCTV footage?
11. Boxer’s charges were dropped but charges against Joey were maintained. LOL.
If you’re going to write a story which has legal intricacies, at least get it checked. The story had potential but they really stuffed it up.
-1 star for the voice used for Joey in the audiobook. The lisp and the incorrect pronunciation of words (eg. ‘aksed’ instead of ‘asked’) was very irritating to listen to.
It would’ve been worth 2 stars, maybe 3 at best until the point of the trial commencing and boy, it went downhill fast. I wonder what lawyer the editor liaised with (if they did, in fact, liaise with anyone) about the specifics of the legal process. Some patently obvious legal unlikelihoods I noticed:
1. Kiri left the scene and wasn’t ever engaged in the sexual assault or even present. How in the world did his charge even get past the committal stage?
2. Similarly, how did Joey’s get past committal? On the victim’s own evidence, he didn’t assault her and they were both affected by drugs.
3. Plenty of trials run with much more media attention than the case in the book with juries. To suggest a jury would be dispensed with in a case like this is laughable.
4. The trial was not joint and instead the Court held a trial for every single accused. Very unlikely.
5. No evidence called from the victim by either the prosecution or Joey? LOL, in what world would that ever happen, particularly when the entire case turns on the victim’s recount?!
6. No evidence from anyone on the prosecution side except the one police officer who took a report from the victim after 30 minutes? LOL.
7. Joey makes a ‘statement’ when he is giving evidence. In no reality would a person giving evidence, much less an accused, be permitted to speak freely in the box and make personal statements before sentencing. That is a ridiculous inclusion.
8. The inconsistencies in how the prosecution applied the facts were so incredibly obvious and never even remarked on. The victim couldn’t consent because of the effect of the drugs on her but Joey, who had taken the exact same drugs in the same context, could? I mean, really.
9. The only evidence called by Joey is his himself. He doesn’t call, for example, Kiri to give evidence about what happened or anyone to speak to the fear the Plaintiff reasonably held about Haz. Ridiculous.
10. No other evidence tendered save for police report. LOL. DNA evidence? CCTV footage?
11. Boxer’s charges were dropped but charges against Joey were maintained. LOL.
If you’re going to write a story which has legal intricacies, at least get it checked. The story had potential but they really stuffed it up.
-1 star for the voice used for Joey in the audiobook. The lisp and the incorrect pronunciation of words (eg. ‘aksed’ instead of ‘asked’) was very irritating to listen to.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
May 31, 2022George Haddad’s debut novel opens with a fable, a story of boys failing to become men. Our protagonist, Joseph Harb – “Joey”, to his friends – inhabits this failure so intimately relinquishing it seems like a waste.
Joey is a nebbish, perennially insecure about his class, his race, and his masculinity. His grasp of Arabic shames him. He gets ripped at the gym – or tries to. It doesn’t really matter. Buff or not, “Joey had never actually wanted to play a part and he suspected most people didn’t.”
His ineffectuality leads him, during a night out, to stand by while a young woman is gang-raped. Facing prison, Joey is forced to confront his family’s repressed histories.
Not every novel requires a psychoanalytic reading, but, in the case of a work like Losing Face, it would be a disservice not to apply a few. Alexander Portnoy would kill for Joey’s mummy issues. Joey fiercely resents his, a Lebanese woman named Alma, for having had a life of her own before him.
The wound stems from a sense of abandonment: his father, a white Australian named Simon Boyle, is imprisoned when Joey is young for accidentally hitting a cyclist. Watching his parents’ wedding tape, Joey notes Simon’s facility with Arabic, envying his dad’s “thicker” physique even as he begrudges the re-entry of the man who “jizzed Joey into existence” back into the family household.
Read on: https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...
Joey is a nebbish, perennially insecure about his class, his race, and his masculinity. His grasp of Arabic shames him. He gets ripped at the gym – or tries to. It doesn’t really matter. Buff or not, “Joey had never actually wanted to play a part and he suspected most people didn’t.”
His ineffectuality leads him, during a night out, to stand by while a young woman is gang-raped. Facing prison, Joey is forced to confront his family’s repressed histories.
Not every novel requires a psychoanalytic reading, but, in the case of a work like Losing Face, it would be a disservice not to apply a few. Alexander Portnoy would kill for Joey’s mummy issues. Joey fiercely resents his, a Lebanese woman named Alma, for having had a life of her own before him.
The wound stems from a sense of abandonment: his father, a white Australian named Simon Boyle, is imprisoned when Joey is young for accidentally hitting a cyclist. Watching his parents’ wedding tape, Joey notes Simon’s facility with Arabic, envying his dad’s “thicker” physique even as he begrudges the re-entry of the man who “jizzed Joey into existence” back into the family household.
Read on: https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...
Displaying 1 - 30 of 90 reviews