Spanning several decades, Ghassan Zeineddine's debut collection examines the diverse range and complexities of the Arab American community in Dearborn, Michigan. In ten tragicomic stories, Zeineddine explores themes of identity, generational conflicts, war trauma, migration, sexuality, queerness, home and belonging, and more.
In Dearborn, a father teaches his son how to cheat the IRS and hide their cash earnings inside of frozen chickens. Tensions heighten within a close-knit group of couples when a mysterious man begins to frequent the local gym pool, dressed in Speedos printed with nostalgic images of Lebanon. And a failed stage actor attempts to drive a young Lebanese man with ambitions of becoming a Hollywood action hero to LA, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have other plans.
By turns wildly funny, incisive, and deeply moving, Dearborn introduces readers to an arresting new voice in contemporary fiction and invites us all to consider what it means to be part of a place and community, and how it is that we help one another survive.
Spanning several decades, Ghassan Zeineddine's debut collection examines the diverse range and complexities of the Arab American community in Dearborn, Michigan. In ten tragicomic stories, Zeineddine explores themes of identity, generational conflicts, war trauma, migration, sexuality, queerness, home and belonging, and more.
In Dearborn, a father teaches his son how to cheat the IRS and hide their cash earnings inside of frozen chickens. Tensions heighten within a close-knit group of couples when a mysterious man begins to frequent the local gym pool, dressed in Speedos printed with nostalgic images of Lebanon. And a failed stage actor attempts to drive a young Lebanese man with ambitions of becoming a Hollywood action hero to LA, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have other plans.
By turns wildly funny, incisive, and deeply moving, Dearborn introduces readers to an arresting new voice in contemporary fiction and invites us all to consider what it means to be part of a place and community, and how it is that we help one another survive.
Ghassan Zeineddine was born in Washington, DC, and raised in the Middle East. He is an assistant professor of creative writing at Oberlin College, and co-editor of the creative nonfiction anthology Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Ohio.
Dearborn is a charming, insightful collection of 10 stories with a
delightful, comic edge, exploring the distinct experiences of Arab
Americans who have made a home in the midwestern United States.--
"Shelf Awareness"
At once urgent and timeless, the stories in Dearborn are searing
and unflinching snapshots of an immigrant community struggling to
carve out space for itself, to find home in unfamiliar territory.
The unforgettable characters slash through stereotypes as they
navigate heart-wrenching and absurd situations, all the while
grappling with identity and intergenerational tensions. The world
Zeineddine creates is filled with beauty, brutal realities, and
humor. I couldn't put it down.--Zaina Arafat, author of You Exist
Too Much
These stories will stay with you for weeks and years after you've
finished them, making you again laugh, wonder, and rage. Dearborn
is masterful, gentle, wild, and full of heart.--Rivka Galchen,
author of Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch
Dearborn is one of the funniest, truest, and most heartfelt books I
have ever read. Zeineddine writes with so much grace and
understanding, so much love and compassion, so much mastery that
these stories will become part of who you are.--Morgan Talty,
bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez
The stories in Dearborn--by turns hilarious and heartbreaking,
astute and absurd--capture such a vital, underspoken aspect of the
Arab-American experience, that sense of being not quite from the
place you love and not quite loved by the place you're from.
Ghassan Zeineddine has a talent for those very small details of
Arab life in a place like Dearborn--the generational fatalism, the
converted garage living room, the unlikely mash-up of cuisines at
the neighborhood restaurant. These are wonderful stories from an
exciting new name in Arab-American literature.--Omar El Akkad,
author of What Strange Paradise
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