Hannah Lillith Assadi

A vivid and lyrical novel exploring the mind of a woman suffering from dementia in her old age. Elle and her husband Simon were sent to Lyra Island by Simon's wealthy father to explore the mysterious blue lights around the island and discover if they really harbor minerals with mystical properties. Decades later, Elle's mind is no longer her own and she can't tell the difference from the past and the present; her life is becoming a jumble of memories. She starts to fixate on the one thing her life that got away - her true love, Gabriel. But where has he gone? Why is Elle's life in such disarray and what has happened to Simon's family's business? What are the blue lights? Beautiful, heartbreaking prose takes readers deep inside Elle's mind as she tries to piece together the timeline of her tumultuous life. Haunting, seductive, and enchanting. Narrator, Hillary Huber, does a perfect execution of Elle's disarrayed thoughts and narrative. Poetic and enchanting - this story will stay with readers long after they've finished the novel.… (more)

Sonora, finalist for the 2018 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, is a rare first novel by a truly gifted writer. I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end. Almost everything about this book is what I would call poetic: from the narration, to the dialogue, to the character action. Perhaps the poetic quality of the writing is not surprising, as the author, Hannah Lillith Assadi, is a published poet as well. As an example of the lyrical narration, here's a passage from the narrator, Ahlam, the daughter of a Palestinian refugee father and Israeli mother:

"I believed I saw the devil once. He had a bellowing face. He was beautiful. Dark complected, tiger eyed. He was far from me, across the room from me. I could not help but be drawn to him. I began to get closer. I could hear him say as a vial was placed in my hand, 'And in the end, even God will have to admit that all those who wandered here wandered toward good.'"

One of the many joys of reading this novel for me is that it contains so many passages like that above, passages that surprise with their bold imagination. Strangely to me, even though the book is poetic and grounded in a realistic narrative, I wouldn't characterize it as an example of magical realism. Nevertheless, this book left a lasting impression on me and I'm am eager to read the author's future work.… (more)