A heart-wrenching story about love, loss, sex, the friendship between
women, and the universal struggle to come to terms with death.
Just before the outbreak of the July 2006 war in Lebanon, a middle-aged
woman named Nahla has gone missing. Distraught, besieged, and without
any leads, Nahla's dearest friends--Suad, Azizeh, Hoda, Nadine, and the
narrator Alawiya--band together to console one another. They reminisce
about the better days of their youth, lifetimes of romantic turmoil, the
trouble with love, and their inescapable confrontation with death.
Unsure whether Nahla has been killed in the fighting, fled the country,
or disappeared into the oblivion of Alzheimer's, Alawiya pieces together
Nahla's intimate past, simultaneously illuminating the jagged history of
modern Lebanon. Through searching discussions with Nahla's closest
confidante Suad, tenacious investigation, and an imaginative effort to
reconstruct the life of another, Alawiya might just find a way to bring
Nahla back. In This Thing Called Love, celebrated Lebanese novelist
Alawiya Sobh takes the war between Israel and Hizballah as the backdrop
for a heart-wrenching story about love, loss, sex, the friendship
between women, and the universal struggle to come to terms with
mortality.
