Swimming Toward the Light

This book reminded me of another one of my favorite authors, Louise Erdrich, by bringing you right inside the lives and emotions of a culture completely different than my own. This was a very emotional novel that doesn't use cheap tricks to put a lump in your throat. It's realistic and sadly all too believable. Poignant is the word, not sturm and drang. I couldn't put the book down. The most important way that a book or movie can fully engage you is by making you care about the characters. You'll find yourself caring deeply for Irene, the main character. Every child is born with a unique personality and Irene was someone who was highly sensitive and fragile. A complete collision course with her dominating, narrow minded mother.

In Swimming Toward the Light, Angela Tehaan Leone has proven that true wealth is in selection. With concise, carefully chosen scenes - some tender, some harsh - Ms. Leone takes the reader inside the Awtooah household where we meet Irene, a young woman struggling to appease her tyrannical mother, yet find a niche in her community. Her choice of Lottie, Irene's older sister, as the narrator of Irene's story was a wise decision. Through Lottie we learn that Irene's mother is unable to accept Irene's growing talent as a vocalist in much the same way she is unable to accept Irene's maturation. Mama is fearful, and predictably scornful of the world outside her close knit immigrant community. Irene is not only required to wear the hand-me-down clothes her mother lengthens with crocheted edging, rick-rack, and ruffles, but is expected to don her mother's established Lebanese culture as well. Mama's dread of the American culture is expressed in her words "What dey want from us?" Ms. Leone understands the power of restraint in writing, and deftly reveals what Irene values; a chance to fit in at the American school - made impossible given her odd clothing, her shyness over her birthmark, and the stubbornly traditional lunches her mother packed while her schoolmates ". . . ate baloney and peanut butter on Wonder bread. . . ." In the midst of Irene's loneliness, a budding romance with Ralph Alan, marked by gentleness and innocence, brightens her days. When two American ladies discover her remarkable singing voice, it appears Irene may have a chance to break free of the stifling constraints of her mother's world.In recounting her sister's tragic life, Lottie reveals much about her own struggle for independence. This novel has a wide-ranging appeal, far beyond the realm of Arab-American literature.

When I started reading the first few pages of this book, I actually felt like I was there. The writing puts you in the time and place. I could see everything vividly. I don't always do well with books as they lose my attention but this book was so amazing. There is hurt and pain in everyone's lives and you really don't know what goes on behind closed doors. The story was very emotional and passionate but so real too.

Ms. Tehaan Leone's moving tale is exquisitely wrought. Her sentences are like paintings and their beauty balances the heartbreaking story of an immigrant family whose matriarch fights her family's assimilation through the destruction of her youngest child. The gifted and sensitive teen is blessed with an angelic singing voice and the successful pursuit of an artistic career threatens her mother to the core. Singing may be allowed but freedom is not. An excellent `take' on the perils of familial love when mental illness is masked as protection of Old World traditions.