T^{he Feminine Art} by Weam Namou. Hermiz Publishing, 256pgs., $13.95

It is rare that a first novel does what it sets out to do. Weam Namou is a smart writer. She doesn't overreach, overthink or overwrite this story. Rather, she tells a simple tale simply and clearly. Along the way she manages to introduce a likeable, smart character to the reader and shine a little light on a culture most westerners are unfamiliar with.

The story concerns Suham, an Iraqi-American of Chaldean descent, living in the United States in the early 1990's. Suham is a married woman with two grown children. Suham has a problem -- she is bored. Bored with her marriage to George, whom she has been married to since she was just sixteen. It is not that she doesn't love George or that he doesn't love her. But the spark has definitely gone out of their marriage. George is gentle to the point of being passive and uncommunicative. If this were the typical "Chick-Lit" novel, Suham would embark on an affair with an intriguing stranger. But, the lack of passion isn't Suham's only problem -- she also feels a certain amount of discord living in the United States, even though she's spent most of her life living in America. It's not a question of experiencing prejudice, either. Suham's discord with American culture stems mostly from her idealized memories of her Iraqi girlhood.

Suham decides to alleviate her silent suffering by conspiring with her older sister, Wadi, to arrange a marriage for Wadi's only son, Michael. Michael reluctantly agrees and the wheels are set in motion for a trip to the Middle East -- first to post-Gulf War, sanction-era Iraq and then to Jordan. It is when the story enters the Middle East, that Namou shows her skills. While she deals with the effects of the war on the people of the region, she never allows the story to get bogged down in the politics. Although Michael's initial meeting with Rita is satisfactory, Suham's own satisfaction is short-lived as the marriage is soon cancelled and all her schemes come to nothing. It is through her experiences in the Middle East that she comes to learn that the Iraq of her dreams no longer exists and, perhaps, never really did exist. Her failure with Michael makes her realize that her life and her only path to fulfillment is at home with her husband. Upon her return, Suham reconnects with her husband.

Namou is not a great stylist. Her prose is workmanlike -- it gets the job done but doesn't instantaneously dazzle or enrapture the reader. Instead, she is a patient and subtle writer who instills trust in the reader bit by bit.

-- Reviewed by JCE