The unnamed protagonist in this fast-paced, autofictional Bildungsroman experiences a memorial journey through touchstones in his life after suffering a debilitating heart attack. Moving in and out of illusion and reality, on this reflective adventure he encounters seminal events, unusual personalities, and disturbing ghosts that help define his essence and that take him from humble origins through precarious childhood, vexing adolescence, exceptional education, troubled family life, and succ...

Yara, a Lebanese woman, describes her past and present in terms of the scents of the souks, the odors of the street, the perfumes of soap and perfume shops, the smell of her mother’s cooking, the colognes of her male friends and husband. She is admittedly hypersensitive to her olfactory surroundings, and associates many of these with memories dear to her, recalling Proust’s evocative madeleines. She is forbidden by her father to marry a non-Muslim, yet the memory of her Jewish first boyfr...