THE WEDDING PARTY by Liu Xinwu; trans. by Jeremy Tiang

“Mahmoud’s debut novel explores family bonds and class tension in Egypt and the United States.”

cairo circles

captures the playful exhilaration with which Le Tellier marries his audacious plot to a deep concern for existentialist philosophy. Excerpts from Miesel’s The anomaly appear in epigraphs for each new section, including: “There is something admirable that always surpasses knowledge, intelligence, and even genius, and that is incomprehension.”

Humorous, captivating, thoughtful—existentialism has never been so thrilling.

THE WEDDING PARTY

Liu Xinwu Trans. by Jeremy Tiang Amazon Crossing (400 pp.) $24.95 | Nov. 16, 2021 978-1-5420-3120-2

Covering one 12-hour day in December 1982, Liu’s magnum opus focuses on all aspects of a working-class wedding, from the earliest preparations to the final farewells, while telling intersecting stories about the inhabitants of the Beijing building where the celebration occurs.

The novel is stuffed with Chinese history, the specifics of life in 1982 (including architecture, food, and clothing), and philosophical musings on time and what it means to be human. Each character in the Dickensian cast undergoes a private drama: They’re all fully developed people, with complete histories showing the varied and complex impact of Chinese communism, particularly the Cultural Revolution, on individual fortunes. The wedding takes place in a siheyuan, a building built around a courtyard that in feudal times housed one wealthy extended family but by 1982 is divided into multiple apartments with a variety of residents, from a high-level bureaucrat and a poetry editor to a warehouse guard and a cobbler. Retired grocery store clerk Auntie Xue wants to throw her son, Jiyue, the perfect wedding, hiring young chef Lu Xichun to cook a traditional multicourse feast. The ostensible plot surrounds the wedding’s success or failure, in particular a crisis that arises over the gold-plated watch the Xues have spent their savings to buy as a gift for Jiyue’s bride. But a host of subplots involving flawed yet empathetic characters vie for attention; among them is an unflappable government bureau chief who receives a shocking letter that could destroy his career, a British-educated translator whose uneducated father disapproves of his intellectual fiance, a busybody no one likes despite her good deeds, and an opera singer whose profession and marriage collide. The novel’s heart lies with quiet, passionately competent chef Xichun, whose cooking never falters and who never loses sight of his and others’ humanity.

A deep immersion in everyday life in Beijing after the Cultural Revolution.

CAIRO CIRCLES

Mahmoud, Doma Unnamed Press (369 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 12, 2021 978-1-951213-36-7

Mahmoud’s debut novel explores family bonds and class tension in Egypt and the United States.

Spanning several decades in the lives of its characters, this novel puts a group of young Egyptians and Egyptian

Americans through a host of familial, moral, and psychological challenges. Mahmoud takes his time in establishing the full scope of the story, but it gradually becomes clear that it’s exploring the wake of two traumatic experiences. The book opens in 2002 with Zeina, a girl from a working-class background who has a fantastic singing voice. She dreams of growing up to be a professional singer, which puts her at odds with her family. Some time later, she vanishes. Meanwhile, Sheero, who lives in New York and narrates several of the chapters, discovers that his estranged cousin, Amir, has carried out a mass shooting in New York City. As Sheero looks back over his fraught relationship with Amir and loses himself in whiskey and cocaine, Zeina’s brothers, Omar and Mustafa, struggle to find places for themselves in Egypt, a country going through substantial political changes. Sheero’s best friend, Taymour—whose family employed Zeina’s mother as a maid—brings the two plotlines together. There’s a lot to admire here, from the way Mahmoud moves the action forward and backward in time and parcels out information about the different characters. But the novel can be frustrating in places—watching Sheero wrestle with both his memories and an onslaught of media attention in the aftermath of Amir’s violent act makes for compelling reading, but a large chunk of his inner conflict is resolved in passing late in the novel. It doesn’t always click seamlessly, but when this book hits its stride, it does so with great power.

This novel’s complex web of relationships makes for an ambitious literary debut.

DOCTORS AND FRIENDS

Martin, Kimmery Berkley (384 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 9, 2021 978-1-984802-86-6

Seven medical school friends navigate the emotional and physical devastation wrought by a global pandemic.

Written before the Covid-19 pandemic, this book navigates the implications of

An extraordinarily beautiful, touching adventure that can stand with the classics of children’s literature.—Kirkus Star Review