In the Country of Men

A Novel

By: Hisham Matar

Narrated by: Khalid Abdalla

Libya, 1979. Nine-year-old Suleiman's days are circumscribed by the narrow rituals of childhood: outings to the ruins surrounding Tripoli, games with friends played under the burning sun, exotic gifts from his father's constant business trips abroad. But his nights have come to revolve around his mother's increasingly disturbing bedside stories full of old family bitterness. And then one day Suleiman sees his father across the square of a busy marketplace, his face wrapped in a pair of dark sunglasses. Wasn't he supposed to be away on business yet again? Why is he going into that strange building with the green shutters? Why did he lie? Suleiman is soon caught up in a world he cannot hope to understand - where the sound of the telephone ringing becomes a portent of grave danger; where his mother frantically burns his father's cherished books; where a stranger full of sinister questions sits outside in a parked car all day; where his best friend's father can disappear overnight, next to be seen publicly interrogated on state television.

In the Country of Men is a stunning depiction of a child confronted with the private fallout of a public nightmare. But above all, it is a debut of rare insight and literary grace.

©2006 Hisham Matar (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Beautifully written!

Gorgeous writing. Powerful psychological insights into the nature of humans and the human spirit. Stunning

5 Stars!

This was an exceptionally difficult book to read. This story is told through the perspective of a 9 year old boy in 1979, living through the reign of Moammar Qaddafi in Libya.

Through the eyes of Suleiman, our narrator, we see how his peaceful and consistent life is changed by Qaddafi’s ruling. We hear through his mother’s stories how she was forced into marriage at 14 and see her struggling with depression and a drug addiction.

I read a lot of dark romance and don’t usually have a hard line in books, but this story at times was more than I could handle. Knowing that people lived (and are living) through these awful heartbreaking situations is absolutely devastating. Finishing this book was relieving, because reading it really took its toll. An absolutely heartbreaking and soul shattering story.

Two quotes from the book that stuck with me are:
Chapter 2: “Her story was mine too, it bound us, turned us into one, “two halves of the same soul, two open pages of the same book,” as she used to say.”

Chapter 16: “I imagined what I would have done to save her. In my fantasy I would tap on the window of the room where she was held captive and help her jump out. We would run away somewhere no one could find us. And to avoid people’s gossip we would pretend to be brother and sister, because I would be nine and she would be fourteen. I would make sesame sticks and sell them to children, delivering them on my big motorcycle. I would spend the money I made on books for her. And one day she would meet that boy she was with in the Italian Coffee House-perhaps by the seashore, or at a café, or in a line in a bakery-and fall in love with him again. Many times I would drive by on my motorcycle and see them holding hands above a table in a café, big, silent smiles on their faces. And after they had found many reasons to be together and all the books in the world were read, it would be the time for me to be born. My imagination turned the tale in my head-I saved her, went away with her, then came back to save her again-until sleep curled itself around me and I sank into it, feeling the dark, warm glow of hope spread itself around within me.”

Chapter 23: “And like all Libyans who don’t return, the shadow of the suspicion fell firmly on me, strengthened further by yet another decree, issued when I was fourteen, promising that all “Stray Dogs” who refused to return would be hunted down. These decrees got ever more desperate. The governments next move was to refuse my parents visa to leave the country, holding them hostage, as it were, until the evading Stray Dog returned:
Why does our country long for us so savagely? What could we possibly give her that hasn’t already been taken?”

I wish I could have learned more….

Redundancy abounds in this novel that drones on in only one person’s point of view, that of a whining self-absorbed 9 year old boy. I Wish I could have learned more about Libya and the political situation occurring.

Nothing likable

Most of the story from the point of view of a child and then switches to the voice of the same child as an adult. Not a very likable kid or adult.