Real Change News | In Casablanca, poverty and fundamentalism prove a potent mix

July 22, 2009
Vol: 16 No: 23

Arts & Entertainment

In Casablanca, poverty and fundamentalism prove a potent mix

by: Mary Cheadle Babl , Contributing Writer

Secret Sonby Laila Lalami, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Hardcover, 2009, 291 pages, $23.95.

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One of the ramifications of “globalization” is the remarkable number of novels being published about recent events happening all over the world. These books try to capture and explain the effect of history — wars, genocides, the drug trade, scientific discovery, the stock market, immigration, unemployment, religious fervor, civil rights — on individual lives. Some examples in the last few years: “Falling Man” by Don DeLillo, “The Invention of Everything Else” by Samantha Hunt and “Terrorist” by John Updike, who died this year. “Secret Son” flows in the same current.

The central character is Youssef El-Mekki of Casablanca, a young college student being raised by a single mother in a slum of the city called Hay An Najat. As a student of English literature and the son of a hospital housekeeper, Youssef has no job prospects. Author Lalami calls attention to how little incentive the disadvantaged youth of the city have to stay in school because there is little work awaiting them. Government officials only protect the status quo of haves and have-nots. A journalist who figures importantly in “Secret Son,” Farid Benaboud, has to be careful about what he writes because the city’s powerful elite tolerates only a limited amount of criticism and the fundamentalists tolerate none at all.

The fundamentalists in the novel, a small Muslim group called “Al Hizb” (the Party), are the only leaders who at least seem concerned with doing something about poverty. They set up headquarters in a café in a run-down movie theater and offer direct aid (and sermons) to the inhabitants of Hay An Najat suffering the effects of a flood: “Through God, with God, by God” is its motto.

“Secret Son” contains numerous nicely written passages. One occurs early in the novel when an increase in bus fares is announced and the students stage a strike. There is violence, Youssef is injured and, escaping arrest, he takes refuge in the Party’s café. Afterward, he makes his way home along the narrow streets of the slum, where the smell of trash permeates the air and “many doors were ajar, letting out the sounds of TV sets, each one tuned to a different satellite channel, each blaring news in a language of its own.” Youssef makes his way up a hill, “occasionally ducking under half-empty laundry lines” and standing aside “to let pass a group of women bringing a bride from the hammam. The women let out their joy cries and clapped in rhythm to a bridal song. Life goes on, he thought, and no one cares what happens to anyone else.”

When he arrives home to their shack, his mother questions him as she spoons out his bowl of couscous and buttermilk drizzled with “ribbons of sugar and cinnamon.” One of the pleasures and virtues of reading “Secret Son” is being exposed to some Moroccan phrases and traditions, though this exposure is sometimes light and fleeting: Lalami refers to the “Years of Lead” and to the the Salafists without explanation. Other phrases she is more careful to elucidate: “mektub” is fate, “rba’a” is one’s gang or circle of friends, Tamazight is one of the languages of Morocco, and Saharawi refers to Moroccans from the Saharan region.

The social division between rich and poor and the way the arrogance of the wealthy perpetuates the poverty of people like Youssef, his mother and his friends is one of the issues Lalami explores. The other is the question of Youssef’s parentage: He grows up not knowing his father and, as it turns out, not even knowing his mother’s real story. When he learns the truth about both — even meeting his father and learning of his father’s wife and daughter — the knowledge shatters his idea of himself and sends him searching for a new identity. As you might predict, he suffers greatly, is angry and hurt, and eventually becomes involved in the fundamentalist group Al Hizb, which brings the novel to its climax and conclusion.

Watch when you get to the ending: Lalami and her editors inadvertently repeat a visit by Youssef’s wealthy half-sister to his impoverished, hard-working mother (twice the sister “softly” asks, “May I come in?” and twice they sit on the divan in the yard together). This flaw aside, the ending of the novel is worth slowing down for. It is not predictable, and there are a couple of surprising twists in the plot that suddenly shed light on what has come before.

My chief criticism of “Secret Son” is its style. Despite some nicely written passages, Lalami’s language is often so plain as to be uninteresting. As fine as her drawing of Youssef’s mother is, her depiction of Youssef’s wealthy father’s family is too superficial. Call me a literary snob: I got more out of Updike’s “Terrorist,” his historical novel about a young man like Youssef being raised by a single mother in New Jersey and drawn, even more than Youssef, to a fundamentalist version of Islam. But I leave the verdict in your hands: read both “Terrorist” and “Secret Son,” and you will not forget either.

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