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The Syrian
The Syrian is a powerful contemporary novel of passion and betrayal, set against the brutal and bewildering outbreak of the Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, 2006.
Nadia, a woman who has waited 13 years for a husband who was “disappeared,” finally decides to declare him dead so she can marry an American physician, Andrew Sullivan. On the eve of her engagement party, her best friend Sonia, a well-connected war correspondent, rings to tell her that her husband may still be alive in a Syrian prison. Out to get Andrew for herself, Sonia draws in the powerful head of the Syrian secret police to help her in her Byzantine manipulations. Thus begins a series of dangerous plot twists that become increasingly bloody as Nadia attempts to rescue her husband, and the border conflict with Israel escalates.
Nadia, a woman who has waited 13 years for a husband who was “disappeared,” finally decides to declare him dead so she can marry an American physician, Andrew Sullivan. On the eve of her engagement party, her best friend Sonia, a well-connected war correspondent, rings to tell her that her husband may still be alive in a Syrian prison. Out to get Andrew for herself, Sonia draws in the powerful head of the Syrian secret police to help her in her Byzantine manipulations. Thus begins a series of dangerous plot twists that become increasingly bloody as Nadia attempts to rescue her husband, and the border conflict with Israel escalates.
302 pages, Paperback
First published October 2, 2014
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About the author
Cathy Sultan
16 books29 followersCathy Sultan is an award winning author of three nonfiction books: Beirut Heart - One Woman's War; Israeli & Palestinian Voices: A Dialogue with Both Sides; and Tragedy in South Lebanon - The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006. Her first work of fiction, The Syrian, was published in January 2015, with a sequel, Damascus Street, following in early 2018.
Sultan is also an activist who sits on the Board of the Interfaith Peace Builders, an NGO based in Washington, D.C.. She has led several delegations to Israel-Palestine, and accompanied a delegation to Gaza in November 2012.
In Cathy's own words:
I grew up in Washington D.C.. Quite rebellious as a young woman, I yearned to escape from my native city and experience great adventures. My dreams came true when I fell in love with a handsome young Lebanese physician, eloped against my parents' wishes after a short courtship, had two children and in 1969 moved to Beirut, Lebanon, a city called the "Switzerland of the Middle East" and famous for its hospitality, its lovely Mediterranean climate and its exotic blend of Arab and Western cultures.
For six years I led the life of my dreams. My home was a rooftop apartment with a terrace full of flowers and a breathtaking view of the city. I was accepted and loved as a Lebanese. My husband had a successful medical practice and my children were growing up speaking English, French and Arabic.
But in April 1975, my life was abruptly turned upside down. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, the Christian Phalange militia attacked a bus full of Palestinians in a neighborhood not far from mine in East Beirut. This singular incident set off an infamous civil war that eventually engulfed the whole city. My tranquil tree-lined street, a block off Damascus Road and two blocks from the National Museum, became a deadly territorial divide: the infamous Green Line, separating East from West Beirut. Despite the constant danger, my feelings for my lover-city were slow to change. Instead of fleeing, my love affair with Beirut clouded my otherwise clear judgement and we stayed through the first eight years of Lebanon's bloody civil war.
I spent my days caring for my family, racing under the bombs to rescue my children from school and comforting my physician husband who spent his days treating wounded civilians. I kept my sanity during the war in large part because I loved to cook. I entertained family and friends constantly, trying as much as possible to incorporate some normalcy into our lives. Little by little I acquired the coping skills necessary to resist and survive in the absurd dysfunction of war. Eventually, though, war took a huge toll on my family and in 1983 we abandoned our beloved Beirut and returned to the States.
It took a number of years for all of us to regain our sanity. And it wasn't until when my son, by then a junior at Harvard, asked me to record our adventures in Beirut that I began to think about writing my story. What began as a project for my children quickly became my way to mourn the loss of my beloved Beirut. Another reason had to do with the attitude of people I met when my husband and I settled down in the mid-West. They seemingly could not relate to my war stories and quickly became disinterested. This painful experience was the impetus that stimulated me to write, to pour my heart out, to clease my soul of the traumas of war. A Beirut Heart: One Woman's War is a memoir of my fourteen years in Beirut.
In March 2002, two years into the 2nd Intifada, I traveled to Israel-Palestine to better understand the conflict. My book "Israeli and Palestinian Voices: A Dialogue with Both Sides" is part adventure, part history, part travelogue, all bound together with a startling collection of interviews which I conducted first-hand in a variety of sometimes not very safe places.This book is a continuation of the my quest to bring peace to a region tragically gripped by obduracy and fanaticism, a region of the world I care dee
Sultan is also an activist who sits on the Board of the Interfaith Peace Builders, an NGO based in Washington, D.C.. She has led several delegations to Israel-Palestine, and accompanied a delegation to Gaza in November 2012.
In Cathy's own words:
I grew up in Washington D.C.. Quite rebellious as a young woman, I yearned to escape from my native city and experience great adventures. My dreams came true when I fell in love with a handsome young Lebanese physician, eloped against my parents' wishes after a short courtship, had two children and in 1969 moved to Beirut, Lebanon, a city called the "Switzerland of the Middle East" and famous for its hospitality, its lovely Mediterranean climate and its exotic blend of Arab and Western cultures.
For six years I led the life of my dreams. My home was a rooftop apartment with a terrace full of flowers and a breathtaking view of the city. I was accepted and loved as a Lebanese. My husband had a successful medical practice and my children were growing up speaking English, French and Arabic.
But in April 1975, my life was abruptly turned upside down. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, the Christian Phalange militia attacked a bus full of Palestinians in a neighborhood not far from mine in East Beirut. This singular incident set off an infamous civil war that eventually engulfed the whole city. My tranquil tree-lined street, a block off Damascus Road and two blocks from the National Museum, became a deadly territorial divide: the infamous Green Line, separating East from West Beirut. Despite the constant danger, my feelings for my lover-city were slow to change. Instead of fleeing, my love affair with Beirut clouded my otherwise clear judgement and we stayed through the first eight years of Lebanon's bloody civil war.
I spent my days caring for my family, racing under the bombs to rescue my children from school and comforting my physician husband who spent his days treating wounded civilians. I kept my sanity during the war in large part because I loved to cook. I entertained family and friends constantly, trying as much as possible to incorporate some normalcy into our lives. Little by little I acquired the coping skills necessary to resist and survive in the absurd dysfunction of war. Eventually, though, war took a huge toll on my family and in 1983 we abandoned our beloved Beirut and returned to the States.
It took a number of years for all of us to regain our sanity. And it wasn't until when my son, by then a junior at Harvard, asked me to record our adventures in Beirut that I began to think about writing my story. What began as a project for my children quickly became my way to mourn the loss of my beloved Beirut. Another reason had to do with the attitude of people I met when my husband and I settled down in the mid-West. They seemingly could not relate to my war stories and quickly became disinterested. This painful experience was the impetus that stimulated me to write, to pour my heart out, to clease my soul of the traumas of war. A Beirut Heart: One Woman's War is a memoir of my fourteen years in Beirut.
In March 2002, two years into the 2nd Intifada, I traveled to Israel-Palestine to better understand the conflict. My book "Israeli and Palestinian Voices: A Dialogue with Both Sides" is part adventure, part history, part travelogue, all bound together with a startling collection of interviews which I conducted first-hand in a variety of sometimes not very safe places.This book is a continuation of the my quest to bring peace to a region tragically gripped by obduracy and fanaticism, a region of the world I care dee
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 28, 2017
I read this because she lives/has lived in Lebanon for many years and has written on the Middle East, so I thought a political thriller by someone like that might be interesting. How wrong I was. Clunky cliched writing, no sense of atmosphere or place, a love story that was embarrassingly unreconstructed (Boring Good Girl v. Sultry Man-Eater Bad Girl), and no disguise at all for the anti-Israel tract it actually is. Apparently Israel killed the Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, she says, despite there being no evidence of or motive for this. Oh and Hezbollah, despite their Nazi salutes and gay-killing, are Not So Bad Really. Disgraceful.
July 23, 2020
Gripping
After reading this story I'll never listen to the news with the same ears again. The story is raw, shows how low humanity is sinking. Sultans characters are so strong they will remain in my thoughts for a very long time. I'm impatiently waiting for a sequel.
After reading this story I'll never listen to the news with the same ears again. The story is raw, shows how low humanity is sinking. Sultans characters are so strong they will remain in my thoughts for a very long time. I'm impatiently waiting for a sequel.
November 15, 2021
Amazing read!
I loved the whole book from beginning to the exciting end! I need a sequel to it. I have recommended to several of friends and family members.
I loved the whole book from beginning to the exciting end! I need a sequel to it. I have recommended to several of friends and family members.
August 18, 2016
I liked it so much I read it in a single go. One thing, however, that was pretty obvious was that Jaffery could easily have kidnapped Nadia at the beginning of the story, not at the end. Otherwise, it was a wild ride through Lebanese and Syrian politics, the Hariri assassination, and Israeli intrigue. And Cathy Sultan will no doubt be getting complaint letters from all the many Israeli apologist organizations defending the nation that still occupies not only Gaza and the West Bank but the Golan and parts of Lebanon -- with American blessings. She doesn't pull any punches. There is an alternate foreign policy story to be told, and she tells it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews