Bringing up Lolita

Growing up in America isn8217;t easy for Arabs. But what8217;s ethnicity got to do with it?

Of all the issues that conflict us as human beings, adolescent sexu-ality is possibly the most potent. Cut-ting across cultures, countries and religions, 8220;growing-up8221; comes as a package deal with unvoiceable questions, confused emotions and a bewildering breakdown of the hitherto invincible divide between right and wrong. Into that simmering cauldron throw in pa-rental estrangement, war, religion and poli-tics, and the resultant broth is likely to be a deeply unsettling concoction that defies rea-son and identification. But uncomfortable as it may be, Towelhead hangs together, a suc-cess that can be attributed as much to Erian8217;s provocative prose and searing treatment of her subject as the perfect pitch she endows her first-person narrator, Jasira.

Jasira is 13, of Lebanese-Irish read Arab-American parentage, and packed off to live with her father in Houston when her di-vorced mother suspects her the mother8217;s boyfriend is getting too interested in the pre-pubescent child. As happens with girls in al-most all cultures, the guilt seed is sowed early: every bad thing is her fault, whether it8217;s stated explicitly or not, and it is up to Jasira to make people like her.

Her body, Jasira discovers early with her mother8217;s boyfriend, can make people happy.

Physically mature yet fundamentally inno-cent, Jasira thus embarks on a warped, vi-cious cycle of lies and exploitation that will extract a heavy price from all concerned. Dis-tanced from her parents, mocked by chil-dren8212; the title comes from a racial slur the neighbour8217;s son throws at her8212;the 13-year-old will do anything for acceptance.

Erian8217;s strength lies in her unhesitating foray into the recesses of our minds where we tuck away individual memories of unbecoming behaviour. Every one of us who has lived through adolescence will find something to identify with in this book, every one of us who is bringing up an adolescent will be forced to think what lies beneath that common an-swer: 8220;I don8217;t know.8221;

Ironically, the adults and their politics are the novel8217;s weakest links. Jasira8217;s dad, the Lebanese scientist, comes close to being a caricature of the Arab: hot-tempered, violent, irrational. Vuoso, the peadophile next door, is a downright creep with right-wing preju-dices. And Jasira8217;s only friends are sympa-thetic white liberals. But the politics is almost incidental, as is the Gulf War-I backdrop, which could be read as a failure to exploit a metaphor indicated by the title. But there8217;s nothing wrong with Jasira.