Mosaic, a Novel

Recently I finished reading Mosaic, a novel by Soheir Khashoggi. It bears similarities to Betty Mahmoody's Not Without My Daughter, the true saga of Mahmoody's escape from Iran with her daughter, against her husband's will. In Mosaic, Dina's husband Karim spirits their two youngest children away to Jordan in the belief that he must do it in order to raise them with proper Muslim family values. After living in New York for decades, he's come to the conclusion that American values are flawed and decadent, and he must take the two younger ones away from their influence before they turn out like their teenage brother Jordy.

Like Mahmoody, the fictional Dina refuses to hand her children over to Karim to raise in a completely different culture. She fears for them, because they are American children in a country where Americans are not liked. Her husband's betrayal shatters her happy life and sets her on a dangerous mission to retrieve her children at any cost.

In her time of need, Dina reaches out to her two best friends, Sarah and Em. The three of them each have a "man" problem. Em, an African-American woman from Louisiana, has an ex who walked out on her and their son 15 years earlier, and has hardly ever contacted his son. Sarah is divorced from her Israeli husband, who refused to give her a get (a Jewish divorce).

Each of these characters is well developed and has her issues move to resolution. But in the meantime, Dina finds herself a professional rescuer of abducted children and travels to Jordan to try to get her twins back. Her in-laws are hostile and suspicious except for her sister-in-law. Karim is overbearing. He's the man and he fully intends to continue doing things his way, whether Dina likes it or not.

The attempt doesn't come off. John Constantine, the rescuer, spots trouble in the form of Karim's security men, and backs off.

Meanwhile, however, Karim is struggling with his own conscience. He'd like to feel wholly self righteous, and he'd like to believe he was acting in his children's best interest, but guilt nags at him. When he sees how unhappy Suzy is, he agrees to let her go home to New York with Dina so long as he can keep Ali. Apparently it is important to him to keep Ali safe from the pernicious influences in America that affected Jordan, their eldest.

The big secret about Jordan: he's gay. That's acceptable here, but in the Muslim world, it's an abomination, unnatural. Karim seems to think that if he keeps Ali in the Muslim culture he can save him from following in his brother's footsteps.

Without giving the whole story away, things reach an acceptable, even hopeful, conclusion, for just about everyone. I found this book a pleasure because it portrayed everyone as a three-dimensional human being with good points as well as flaws. Karim is no one-dimensional villain. He's wrong, by my lights, but he's a real person who can reflect and acknowledge mistakes. These are real people, everyone from his or her own specific background, and their differences make up the beautiful mosaic that the title refers to.

Mosaic is also the name of Dina's business, and part of the marital drift between Dina and Karim is her independence and success as a businesswoman. Karim sees it as taking time away from her family, and in fact he abducts the twins while she is out at work. Mosaic, the novel, raises relevant questions about male/female dynamics, Muslim culture versus mainstream American culture, and ethnic paranoia on both sides of the 9/11 divide. I recommend this book highly.