Hasan Dudar — Carryout - with Eugenia Kim

In the late 1970s, Ziad Idilbi, a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, marries Salma, a Lebanese refugee escaping the war in Beirut. Resolving to start over for the very last time, the couple opens a corner store in Toledo, Ohio, across from the General Motors factory, where Toledo’s Arab community intermingles with the working class. Over the decades, whether it’s bigotry (pre- and post-9/11), financial ruin, or terminal illness, the Idilbis find themselves on life’s outskirts, attempting to build something new.Achingly poignant and slyly funny, the linked stories in Carryout follow the Idilbis and their children as they teeter on the brink of catastrophe. Walid, the youngest child of Ziad and Salma, navigates the heartbreaks of youth as well as the colorful characters who haunt his parents’ corner store. As he grows up into a writer, Walid’s gaze fixes on his father and the long shadow of displacement and occupation. Mustafa, the eldest son, is forever trying to outrun the disasters that seem to seek him out, while Nawal, the only daughter, is dumped by a friend and hatches a scheme to win her back. Unsure whether to run toward each other or away from each other, the characters in Dudar’s exquisite debut suffer the absurdities and indignities of life in America with wry obstinance and striking wisdom.Hasan Dudar is from Toledo, Ohio, and lives in Washington, DC. Carryout is his first book of fiction.Dudar is in conversation with Eugenia Kim, whose debut novel, The Calligrapher’s Daughter, won the Borders Original Voices Award, was shortlisted for the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was a Washington Post Best Historical Novel and Critic’s Pick. Her second novel, The Kinship of Secrets, was a Library Reads best book of November and Hall of Fame list for 2018, and an Amazon Best Book of the Month/Literature and Fiction. She is a two-time Washington DC Council on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship recipient, and received fellowships at Yaddo, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and elsewhere. Ms. Kim teaches fiction and nonfiction at Fairfield University’s MFA Creative Writing Program.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781685970611?ic_referral=9u6qLdWRRoRAygnPuBkKr_PxcCG-kRXfWzO4b-s47CkwM0pCe8kpFIFyThteVCm4CSGsilx7jTKfLSaLvoLUFRYJgrosz76zgF-F1hNLU0d19MoK9Gs0bNEyhRNONueK0iuOIxY