Between Two Moons

April 15, 2023
A Muslim family living in Brooklyn works to reconnect through the month of Ramadan. Amira and her twin sister, Lina, are graduating from high school in Bay Ridge at the same time their older brother, Sami, is returning home after six years in prison. Reunited for the first time as young adults, the siblings struggle to relate even as they all have secrets. Lina is partying too much with a new boyfriend who promises to help her become a model, while "good sister" Amira, who plans to go to college, is trying to take care of Lina while venturing into dating. Meanwhile, Sami keeps sneaking away from the house, their parents are trying to figure out how best to support their increasingly distant children, and the neighborhood's Muslim community is dealing with the arrest of a Libyan cafe owner, a violent attack on an imam, and the degrading vandalism of the mosque. Gawad's excellent debut novel illuminates one family's story through the holy month of fasting against the backdrop of NYPD surveillance of a Muslim neighborhood and larger fears of detainment and deportation. Amira narrates most of the book with an engaging voice, while the perspective sometimes changes to a close third-person to peer into experiences of the detained cafe owner, the imam who was attacked, Lina, Sami, and others. These small inserts help to weave a complex portrayal of the whole community into Amira's and Lina's stories as their lives are on the precipice of change, caught between devotion and rebellion, culminating in startling consequences for all. A vibrant achievement.

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Starred review from April 10, 2023
A young Muslim woman comes of age in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, during a period of heightened anti-Arab prejudice in Gawad’s astonishing debut. The story unspools in 2014 on the cusp of Ramadan, as college-bound 17-year-old Amira Emam contends with a series of ruptures in her family life. Her “party girl” twin sister, Lina, frequents a local nightclub with her boyfriend and often calls Amira in the middle of the night for rides home from, among other spots, a seedy motel in New Jersey. The twins’ older brother, Sami, meanwhile, returns after a six-year prison sentence for a drug-related conviction, and she worries his return will affect the family’s equilibrium. After a police raid on a local café, the neighborhood wonders why its proprietor, Abu Jamal, was arrested, and tensions intensify when a mosque is vandalized and an 80-year-old imam is attacked. Then Sami begins meeting with various Muslim community members, and his reasons for doing so lead to a surprising twist. At a protest against Jamal’s detention, Amira meets Faraj, a college student and fellow Muslim, and she keeps their budding relationship hidden, feeling caught between her siblings, the “two moons” of the title. When the nature of Sami’s rendezvous is revealed, the fractured family becomes closer. The author does a knockout job developing the characters, and is especially convincing in conveying Amira’s conflicted feelings about Sami’s return and sketching the contours of the close-knit neighborhood (“The approaching dawn spread like a great massive bruise over New York”). This is a winner. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME.

Starred review from May 15, 2023
On the first day of what promises to be a hot, sweaty, hungry month of Ramadan, Amira wakes to find police raiding the local caf�. The owner, a Libyan immigrant, is thrown into jail, but no one seems to know why. It's just one in an endless stream of ways the Arab American community of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, faces unceasing suspicion and surveillance in a post-9/11 world. Amira and her twin sister, Lina, the daughters of Egyptian immigrants, have grown up in this neighborhood and are set to graduate from high school in a few days. Both yearn to leave Bay Ridge and the weight of Islamophobia behind them--Amira through college, and Lina through modeling. But when their brother, Sami, is released early from prison, their lives are thrown into turmoil as the twins and their parents struggle to interact with a young man they no longer know. As tension rises and the twins' summer unravels, their family and community move closer to a breaking point. Gawad's engrossing, propulsive novel evokes the heat of summer, the sharp pangs that come with fasting, the oppressive climate of fear and distrust, and the insurmountable bond between sisters. An exceptional, not-to-be-missed debut.

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Starred review from January 1, 2023

Twin sisters Amira and Lina, who live in a Muslim neighborhood in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, are graduating from high school. But their excitement is dimmed by their troublesome older brother's return from prison, a police raid on a local business that sets off protests, and a sudden act of violence that pulls everyone apart. A story of family, community, and Islamophobia; from Pushcart Prize winner Gawad.

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