But Parsinnen convincingly inhabits the shifting moods of her characters writing in close third person, she follows Dan, Abdullah, Rosalie and the children (though, interestingly, Abdullah’s second wife remains largely a blank). The pieces are a little too neatly arranged on the plot’s chessboard, and the novel’s climactic chapters, which involve a kidnapping, voice familiar messages about zealotry and cross-cultural understanding. Her daughter, Mariam, is increasingly Westernized, writing a blog that risks angering the authorities, while her son, Faisal, is enchanted by radical Islam and prone to increasingly vehement anti-American rhetoric. But Rosalie can’t easily get away when her two teenaged children require attention. Guiding her in that direction is Dan, an American-born former boyfriend of hers and an employee of Abdullah. But when she discovers that Abdullah has had a second wife for two years, her combative Texas roots reemerge, and she begins voicing her anger and pondering an escape. Rosalie, the heroine of Parssinen’s debut novel, has spent more than two decades living in Saudi Arabia, and she’s resigned herself to the country’s sexist constraints: the headscarves she must wear, the cars she’s not allowed to drive, the subservience she must project to her husband, Abdullah, at least in public. A Saudi patriarch’s decision to take a second wife unsettles more than just his American-raised spouse.
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