Too Soon

By Betty Shamieh

Book Overview

"Fiercely funny, sexy, and culturally resonant." --People, Best Books of the Month - "Shamieh balances her characters' painful family history and their boisterously funny voices." --The New Yorker

A "wonderfully brash and sparkling" (Oprah Daily) novel that explores exile, love, and freedom across three generations of women--"a Palestinian American Sex and the City" (The Atlantic).

Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she's thrust into a conflict and history she's tried to avoid all her life.

Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter and stirring up buried memories.

Naya is keeping a secret from her children that will change all their lives.

Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqu cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic--that might garner international attention--in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster...

With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family's epic journey fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut, Too Soon illuminates our shared history and asks, how can we set ourselves free?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1668046547
• ISBN13: 9781668046548
• Release Date: January 2025
• Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.1"