Rabih Alameddine returns with the tragicomic tale of a son (and his mother).

On this episode of Fully Booked, Rabih Alameddine joins us to discuss The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) (Grove, September 2). Kirkus calls the award-winning author’s latest novel “a sharp exploration of resilience in dark times.”

Alameddine is the author of the novels The Wrong End of the Telescope (PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winner, 2022);The Angel of History; An Unnecessary Woman (National Book Award finalist, 2014); The Hakawati; I, the Divine; and  Koolaids; the story collection The Perv; and one work of nonfiction, Comforting Myths. He is visiting chair of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University.

Here’s a bit more from our review of The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother): “Alameddine is gifted at finding the humor in what for most writers would be singularly traumatic themes, including AIDS, the Lebanese Civil War, and the plight of Middle Eastern migrants. Here, he applies his sardonic wit again to the Civil War as well as the calamities of Covid-19, Lebanon’s banking collapse, and the 2020 Beirut port explosion. But before all that, the title characters are bickering. Raja, a respected philosophy teacher with one acclaimed book to his credit, has been living with his elderly mother in a small apartment made even smaller by the presence of more extended relatives. Exasperated with being reduced to his mother’s ‘homosexual nonbreeding son,’ as well as her dangerous involvement in antigovernment protests, he seeks a respite, and one finds him: an all-expenses-paid residency at an institution in the United States.…But before exploring that, Raja relates the story of his two-month captivity at the hands of an acquaintance during the 1975 Civil War.…Raja’s fatalism is well honed by his period of torment, but also by the everyday annoyances of his family. On both levels, it’s a peculiar but lively and humane book.”

Alameddine and I discuss the importance of devotion, the complexities of love, Alison Bechdel, W.G. Sebald, hypotaxis, author photos, and the irrepressibility of the human spirit.

Then editors Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, and Laurie Muchnick share their top picks in books for the week.

EDITORS’ PICKS:

Beyond the Board: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Daring Big Wave Surfer by Maya Gabeira (Amulet/Abrams)

Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate, illus. by Charles Santoso (Feiwel & Friends)

We Loved To Run by Stephanie Reents (Hogarth)

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Who We Are: America’s Fight for Universal Progress, From Franklin to Kennedy, Vols. I (1750s-1850s) and II (1830s-1890s), by Anton Chaitkin

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.