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Pillars of Salt - A Book Review
A gripping tale of woe, love, lust, and insanity, set in the backdrop of an Arab world.

Original posting: December 2003 Issue

by JAMIE THORNTON, staff writer

“… I will recount to you an horrific story…unfold the multi-layered secrets of both past and present,” and this is exactly what Fadia Faqir does in her fiction novel, Pillars of Salt. The first chapter begins from the point of view of the ‘best story-teller in Arabia’ yet it is actually a story about two women who are committed to an insane asylum in Jordan and why they were sent there. But do not think that this novel is about mental psychosis or conditions in foreign mental hospitals. Fadia Faqir’s novel is a heart wrenching tale about two women stripped of their humanity based solely on the fact that they were born female and stood in the way of something that a male in their lives wanted.

Maha, the main character in the novel, shares her story about a beautiful love with her husband -and eventually child, - in the midst of the British Mandate. This political war ultimately kills her husband and leaves Maha and child in the hands of her violent and hateful brother. After the death of her father, Maha’s brother has complete control over Maha’s physical life and exerts this power at the first sign of her desire to control her and her child’s fate. The point of view switches from her to the storyteller who gives another perspective on Maha’s story and paints her as Jordan society would: he patronizes her every action with the idea that as a female she was born as though she was evil incarnate.

Um Saad shares a room with Maha in the mental hospital and shares her life story with Maha; Um Saad, who bore many sons for her husband, becomes old, like him, but also becomes worthless in her husband’s eyes so he replaces her with a younger wife. Um Saad’s children begin treating her like a lowly servant in her own house until her husband finally commits her to the insane asylum.

Yet all of these events are known almost immediately and so the true heart of the story rests in experiencing every aspect of these two women’s lives and what it took to make these strong, self-possessed women into broken heaps of pain, despair and outrage. Neither woman survives the repression nor subjugation that constitutes daily life for the majority of Arab women, - yet the author manages to convey the idea that these women share their stories for the next generation in hopes that something will change.

Fadia Faqir writes a vivid story rooted in the ancient tradition of Arabian storytelling. She breathes life into her characters from the very first page and creates enough suspense to make the book impossible to put down; the heat, the sand, the orange trees, the young, almost naïve love between Maha and her husband turn the story into one that won’t be forgotten.