A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum (debut)
Publisher: Harper Collins
Release Date: March 5, 2019
Length: 336 pages
Amazon

{A Bit of Backstory}

Single Sentence Summary

With nearly twenty years between them a mother and daughter struggle to find a place for themselves within the confines of their strict Muslim community.

From the Publisher

“Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the strict mores of Arab culture in this powerful debut—a heart-wrenching story of love, intrigue, courage, and betrayal that will resonate with women from all backgrounds, giving voice to the silenced and agency to the oppressed.”

The Draw

• Well, dah! Another great title.
• 3 generations of Palestinian American women.
• Young woman uncovering family secrets.

{My Thoughts}

What Worked For Me

A Mother/Daughter Story – A Woman Is No Man is a big, big story. It’s about an entire culture and how that culture looks at women. And, it’s about that culture’s expectations for women and what can happen when those expectations aren’t met. Most of all, it’s about women struggling to find their own voices within that culture and escaping the culture altogether. Through mother, Isra, and daughter, Deya, we see the very harsh realities of the Palestinian Muslim culture fighting to remain unchanged even after having been transplanted into Brooklyn.

“Where I come from, voicelessness is the condition of my gender, as normal as the bosoms on a woman’s chest, as necessary as the next generation growing inside her belly. But we will never tell you this, of course. Where I come from, we’ve learned to conceal our condition. We’ve been taught to silence ourselves, that our silence will save us.”

Isra comes to America as a young bride, newly wed to a man she barely knows. Deya, the eldest of her four daughters, was born an American, but experiences none of the freedoms other American women take for granted.

“It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t Arab enough. She had lived her entire life straddled between two cultures. She was neither Arab nor American. She belonged nowhere. She didn’t know who she was.”

The balance between these two women, the back and forth stories of Isra and Deya were at the heart of A Woman Is No Man. Through mother and daughter the reader comes to know the culture and the pain of being female in world that places supreme value on men, whether they deserve it or not.

Developing Mystery – I hadn’t expected there to be a mystery within A Woman Is No Man, but at the heart of the story that’s exactly what I found. When we first meet Deya she’s in her last year at an all girls Muslim high school, and the process of finding a husband to marry her off to has begun. Deya wants to go to college, but that’s not even a consideration in her family. As she takes small steps to fight the confines of her life, Deya’s thoughts turn more and more to Isra who died when Deya was only 6. Deya’s memories of her mother are few, but even so the stories she’s been told don’t quite add up and Deya begins a quiet quest to learn more. How exactly did her mother die and why did she always seem so sad and distant toward Deya? This mystery, played out from both Isra’s and Deya’s storylines, became the core of Rum’s story.

Fareeda – A third woman, Fareeda, plays a very big role in A Woman Is No Man. Fareeda is the mother of Isra’s husband, Adam. From the moment the marriage takes place, Fareeda demands sons for Adam. As Isra delivers daughter after daughter, her value in the family grows smaller and smaller, even to other women. Fareeda was harsh, even cruel to Isra, and though kinder to Deya, she still would not even consider her granddaughter’s wishes. Fareeda was an easy character to dislike, so I appreciated that in Part II of the book, Rum introduced us to Fareeda’s perspective. She upended some of my opinions about Fareeda. It didn’t make me like her much more, but the life she had endured at least made me understand her a little better.

“She had known, even before seeing the mournful look on his face, that he would be disappointed. She hadn’t blamed him. The shame of her gender was engraved on her bones.”

What Didn’t

Devaluing of Women – Though at the heart of the culture and key to the story, the treatment of women in A Woman Is No Man was hard to stomach. Isra regularly suffered physical and mental abuse at the hand of her husband, while everyone else in the family turned a blind eye. The relentless pressure to produce a son and Isra’s dismissal as a person of worth when she did not felt heartless.

Isra Herself – Though I felt very sad for Isra, I also grew weary of her long-suffering, self-defeating thoughts. I realize that she was raised to NOT place any value on herself, but her constant helplessness and hopelessness grew too repetitive. I felt like her many insecurities were beat into the story over and over.

{The Final Assessment}

For the most part I liked A Woman Is No Man very much, especially the first half of the story. By the second half, I’d grown a little tired of all the suffering, and just wanted to get to something more positive happening. Thankfully, that did occur. I only wish there had been a few more bright spots along the way. Grade: B

If you liked this book you might also enjoy:

• Dariing to Drive by Manal al-Sharif – The true story of an Saudi woman growing up with strict Muslim values, who none-the-less fought for the right’s of women in her country. (my review)
• The Confusion of Languages by Siobhan Fallon– Two American women trying to balance their values with those of Jordan’s in the Arab Spring of 2011. (my review)

Note: I received a copy of this book from Harper Collins (via Edelweiss) in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!

Disclosure: There are Amazon Associate links included within this post