|
|
Executive Times |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
2005 Book Reviews |
||
|
|
Towelhead by Alicia Erian |
||
|
|
Rating: • (Read only if your interest is strong) |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Abuse Alicia Erian allows her protagonist, 13 year old Jasira Maroun, to be the
narrator of her new novel, Towelhead. The title refers to one of the names that
this young girl of Lebanese descent is called at her middle school. Perhaps
as a result of this first person narrator, all the characters appear
one-dimensional, and there are few reference to
other cultural images that explain the context of Jasira’s
situation. Instead, Erian takes on the topics of
inappropriate sexual relationships, along with racial and ethnic prejudice, and
the outcome is a disturbing story with unappealing characters behaving in
ways that are difficult to understand. Here’s
an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter Three, pp. 49-57: When Daddy found out
that Mr. Vuoso was getting a flagpole, he got one,
too. He put it in the same exact spot in the front yard as Mr. Vuoso’s, and installed a floodlight that he turned on at
night. You had to do this if you wanted to fly the flag at all times, he told
me. Otherwise, you were supposed to take it down at sunset and put it back up
at sunrise. This was what Mr. Vuoso did, and it
drove Daddy crazy. “What is he trying to prove?” Daddy asked, watching him
out the dining room window “That he’s more patriotic? Well, he’s not. It’s
more patriotic to fly the flag all the time.” I knew that Daddy wasn’t
really being patriotic. That he just wanted to bother Mr. Vuoso
and try to teach him a lesson. But I didn’t care. I was glad we had a flag.
For once it seemed like we were normal Americans. Like we did at least one
thing just like everybody else. The next time I saw Mr. Vuoso,
he asked me what Daddy was trying to pull, and I lied and said I didn’t know It had been almost two
weeks since he’d given me the Playboy, and we hadn’t really talked
about it. “Thank you for the magazine:’ I’d Whispered the next day, slipping
out the door after babysitting, and he’d looked at me and said, “What
magazine?” I didn’t feel hurt, though. There was something in his voice that
made me think we really were playing a game, and this was just one of the
rules. He’d given me the issue with the lady
in the golf cart. I wondered if he’d remembered it from that day he’d caught
me and Zack in the guest room, or if it was a coincidence. Either way, I was
glad to see her again. Her wonderful smile. I wanted so much to be like her.
To be with a man photographer and feel good about showing him my breasts. I used the magazine a lot. I woke up
early in the morning to use it, and went to bed early at night. If I ever
woke up in the middle of the night, I used it then, too. More and more, when
I used it, I didn’t press my legs together. Instead, I lay
back on the bed, let my legs fall open, and touched myself while I looked at
the pictures. I touched my nipples, too, like some of the women in Playboy,
and it made the orgasms come faster. It was like there was some
connection running from my breasts to between my legs. To test out how strong
it was, I tried having an orgasm just by touching my nipples, and it worked. I began to think that my body was the
most special thing in the world. Better than other bodies, even. Not because
of the way it looked, but because of all the things it could do. All the
different buttons there were to push. I wanted to find out what every single
one of them was. I wanted to feel as good as possible. At the end of October, the newlyweds
finally came back from “No, she didn’t,” I said. “She’s
pregnant.” “She is?” I nodded. “Can’t you tell the
difference?” He shrugged. “Not really.” We waited a little while
for her to put the food away, then went over and knocked on her door. “Hi,” I
said, “I’m Jasira, and this is Zack. We need to get
our birdies out of your yard.” “What birdies?” she
said. She was eating almonds from a plastic container. Her T-shirt was snug
and showed the shape of her stomach. She had partly blonde hair and partly
brown hair. The brown part was at the roots. A whole crown of it. Up by her
left eye were a couple of tiny moles that made it look like she was crying
black tears. “We shot some birdies
into your yard while you were on your honeymoon,” Zack said, “We just want to
get them back.” “Oh,” she said. “You
mean shuttlecocks.” “What?” Zack said. “Shuttlecocks,” she
said. “That’s the real word for birdies.” “It is not,” Zack said. “You want to bet?” she
said. Zack thought for a
minute, then said, “No.” “Smart move,” she said, Then she stepped back from the door a little. “C’mon in.
Sorry about the mess.” There were boxes
everywhere, and a lot of rolled-up rugs. Instead of carpeting, the lady and
her husband had wooden floors. NPR was playing somewhere, though I couldn’t
see a radio. The lady offered us some
of her almonds, but we said no. “What grades are y’all in?” she asked, and we
told her. She wanted to know if we liked the schools here, and Zack said yes.
I said I liked the ones back home better, and she said, “Oh yeah? Where’s
home?” “ “Where in “You’re kidding,” she
said. “My husband went to SU.” “C’mon, Jasira,” Zack said, “Let’s go get the birdies.” We went outside then and
picked them all up. When we came back in, the lady said, “Jasira.
What kind of name is that?” I hesitated for a
second, and Zack said, “She’s a towelhead.” “Excuse me?” the lady
said. “It’s a towelhead name,” Zack said, and he laughed a little. “Who taught you that
word?” she asked. Zack didn’t answer. “Don’t ever use that
word in this house again,” she said, and she walked off and left us standing
alone in the kitchen. After a second, we turned and let ourselves out the
front door. “What a bitch,” Zack
said once we’d reached the sidewalk. “I thought she was
nice,” I said. “You would.” “She’s right,” I said.
“You shouldn’t be using that word.” “I’ll say whatever I
want, towelhead.” We played a little
badminton then, and I purposely hit a few of the birdies into the lady’s yard
so we could go back and see her tomorrow. Later, when we went
inside, Zack got the dictionary and looked up shuttlecock. “Does it mean birdie?” I
asked, and he nodded. “See?” I said. “She wasn’t trying to trick you.” Next he looked up towelhead. “It’s not in here” he said. “That’s because it’s a
bad word,” I told him. “Oh yeah?” he said, and
he flipped the pages around to show me spic and nigger. “It’s
just a new word,” he said. “They’ll put it in all the new dictionaries.” He went to watch TV, and
I went upstairs. I was getting worried about my tampon supply for November. I
had only three left in my bathroom cabinet, and Mrs. Vuoso
had stopped refilling the jar on the back of her toilet. It seemed like it
had been the same five tampons in there for weeks. And today was no
different. I was going to go back downstairs without taking one, but then I
changed my mind and slipped one in my pocket. I really couldn’t stand the
idea of having to use pads again. They were dirty and smelly, and sometimes I
thought this was the real reason Daddy wanted me to wear them. To make me
think my body was terrible. When Mr.Vuoso
came home, Zack told him that the lady next door had yelled at him. “What
for?” Mr. Vuoso asked. Zack looked at me, then
got up on his tiptoes and whispered something in his father’s ear. After he’d
finished, Mr. Vuoso said, “All right. We’ll talk
about it later.” Then he turned to me and said, “Everything else okay, Jasira?” I nodded. “Good,” he said, and he
walked past me into the kitchen. I left then, and as I
headed down the Vuosos’ front walk, the lady’s
husband pulled into the driveway next door. He drove an old blue truck, which
made me think he’d be wearing jeans when he got out, but he wasn’t. He had on
a gray suit and carried a briefcase. “Hi there,” he said, and I said hi back.
I thought about asking him about When Daddy got home that
night, he gave me a letter with my name on it. It had foreign stamps, and the
person who’d sent it didn’t know how to write the address. The city and state
and zip code were all on separate lines. I turned the letter over and saw
that it was from someone I’d never heard of. “Who’s Nathalie Maroun?” I asked, and Daddy said, “She’s your grandma.”
He told me to open the envelope, and I did, and the whole letter was written
in French. I asked Daddy if he would read it to me, but he said no. He said
that I could take it to school and ask my teacher for help, and that he
expected a full translation tomorrow night. We ate dinner, then I went and sat on the couch with my grandmother’s
letter. She used the same blue onionskin paper as Daddy, and her handwriting
was long and slim. Ma chère Jasira,
it began, which I knew meant My
dear Jasira. I read that part over and over again,
wondering how I could be dear to
someone who’d never even met me. I guessed if I tried, I could
probably have figured out the rest of
the letter, but I didn’t want to try. I didn’t want to hear a bunch of
nice things from someone I
didn’t even know. It didn’t mean anything. The next day, at the
beginning of French class, I showed Madame Madigan my letter and asked if she
would help me. She got very excited, then stood up from her desk and said
she’d be right back. A few minutes later, she returned with Xerox copies of
the letter. She had the whole class break into five groups, and we were each
assigned a paragraph to translate. My group got the one that said: I hope
that one day we will meet and I will be able to kiss your cheeks and tell you
how much I love you. It is important for you to know your Lebanese family.
Please come to By the end of class,
everyone was calling me a towelhead. They also
called me a sand nigger and a camel jockey, which I’d never heard of before.
Even Thomas Bradley, who was black, called me a sand nigger. I felt really terrible
all the way home. On the bus, I sat by myself at the back and thought about
the lady in the golf cart, squeezing my legs together. That helped a little,
but then, when I got to the Vuosos’, there was a
note for me on the kitchen table. It was from Mrs. Vuoso,
and the envelope was sealed. “What’s this?” I asked Zack, and he said how should he know. I opened it, and it said: Dear Jasira, I’ve noticed that my tampons seem to be
disappearing from the back of the toilet. I wondered if maybe you had borrowed some? If so, I would appreciate it if you would stop. They’re kind of
expensive, and I’m sure if you
asked your father, he would get you whatever supplies you need. Thanks, Mrs.
V “What does it say?” Zack
asked. “Nothing,” I said,
putting the note in my pocket. “Are you in trouble?” “Then what is it?” “We need to go next door to get the
birdies I lost yesterday.” “Why?” he said. “We still have a bunch
left.” “I’m going next door,” I told him. “I don’t want to go,” he said. “So stay here.” “You’re supposed to be babysitting me,”
he said. “I thought you didn’t need a
babysitter.” He ignored this and said, “If you go
next door, you can’t get paid for when you’re gone.” “Fine,” I said. He checked his watch. “You can’t get
paid from starting now” “Fine,” I said again, and I left. I went over to the lady’s and knocked.
At first no one answered, then she came to the door
wearing a pair of pajama pants and a Tshirt. “Hi,”
I said, “I need to get our birdies again.” “Sure,” she said. “C’mon in.” I followed her through the living room
and into the kitchen. She was setting up a large spice rack on the counter,
and I noticed that she had a lot of the same ones as Daddy: cumin, coriander,
turmeric, cardamom, fenugreek. “Where’s your friend?” she asked. “Zack?” She nodded. “He’s at home.” “What a mouth on that kid,” she said,
shaking her head. “He didn’t mean it,” I said. “He’s only
ten.” “I don’t care how old he is.” She started alphabetizing the spices.
She seemed very organized, like Daddy, even though she dressed kind of messy.
After a while, I Went outside and got the birdies. When I came back in, I
tried to think of something else to talk about so I wouldn’t have to go back
to the Vuosos’. “What’s your name?” I asked. “Melina,” she said. I nodded. “Do you have any tampons?” She laughed. “Tampons? What would I be
doing with tampons?” I didn’t know what she meant by this.
She stopped working then and looked at me. “You don’t get your period when
you’re pregnant:’ she said. “All that blood stays in your uterus to keep the
baby cushioned.” “Oh.” “Why?” she said. “Do you need a
tampon?” “Not right now,” I said. “But I will
soon.” “Can’t your parents buy you some?” “It’s just Daddy,” I said. “That’s who
I live with.” “Well,” she said, “can’t you ask him?”
I shook my head. “No.” “No?” “I’m not allowed to wear them,” I said.
“Not until I’m married.” “Huh,” she said, “I guess I never
really heard of that.” “That’s Daddy’s rule,” I told her. “Where’s he from?” Melina asked. “ “Huh,” she said again. Then she said, “What’s
with the flag?” “Excuse me?” I said. “You guys live on the other side of the Vuosos,
right?” I nodded. “So why does your father fly the flag?” “Daddy hates Saddam,” I said. She looked at me like she didn’t really understand. “Mr. Vuoso thinks Daddy loves Saddam,” I tried to explain, “but Daddy doesn’t.
That’s why he put the flag up.To prove it.” “Why does your father care what that
guy thinks?” I thought for a second, then said, “I don’t know.” “Because that guy is a pig,” Melina
said. “Who?” I said. “Vuoso,” she
said. “He reads Playboy.” “He does?” I said. Suddenly it seemed
like something I should keep a secret. Melina nodded. “We got some of his mail
on accident yesterday” “Did you give it back?” “Hell no,” she said. “I threw it out.” “You threw out his Playboy?” “Why shouldn’t I?” she said. I didn’t answer. “I’ll throw out whatever I want.” I felt really upset then. Not just
because Melina had thrown out a Playboy, but because she seemed to think it was such a bad thing to
like. I didn’t want her to think that way I wanted her to like it as much as
I did. I wanted us to think the same way about everything. “Well,” I said, “I
guess I better go.” “All right.” “Sorry about the birdies,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.” It was a short walk back to the Vuosos’, but I slowed it down by not cutting across their
front lawn. When I walked in the
door, Zack said, “What took you so long?” “I was only gone ten minutes,” I said. “You were gone fifteen minutes,” he
said. “That means you lose fifty cents.” “Whatever,” I said. I didn’t really
care. Mostly, I just wanted to think about Melina. How you could see the nub
of her belly button poking through her T-shirt. Towelhead could have been one of those post-9/11
novels that brought increased understanding and unity. Instead, it’s an
average coming of sexual awareness story that is played out in ways that are
likely to disturb many readers. Steve Hopkins,
July 25, 2005 |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Go to Executive Times
Archives |
|||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
ã 2005 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the August 2005
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Towelhead.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
