“Youssef felt like shaking this man, who had been nothing but kind to him, this helpless man who was like so many other people in the country, completely disabused of the notion that there was much use fighting against injustice. The only thing that stopped Youssef was the look in the man’s eyes, a look that made it clear he would accept his indignity as he had accepted all the others life had dealt him.”
I start this post with this quote because through a man’s eyes it describes what I felt while reading the novel — despair. Both in the characters and the description of the city and town, there is a sentiment of helplessness, especially amongst the youth. Youssef’s (the main character) struggles with life are described by comparing his hometown with his brief luxurious life in the city. Between corrugated tin ceilings and dirt floors in the Casablanca slums, he journeys from adolescence to adulthood losing all hope. His young adulthood starts in his hometown, where young people have no job opportunities and hang out in the only public space available which later becomes the party’s headquarters. He then goes to university where he finds some hope, a flavor of love, and discovers a feeling inside him that something of his identity does not fit in.
This feeling eventually leads him to confront his mother – the most spiritually powerful character of the novel – about the true identity of his father. As he searches and finds his father, he discovers the life he could had have with his father’s wealth (growing up in a house in the city, dining at restaurants, and studying in a private university in California like his new-found half sister). Yet, soon he understands that he cannot have both worlds, he has to sacrifice something — his mother. Lalami describes the contrast of both realities with the surroundings, the language characters from different social classes use, and the clothing each character wears. She shows the ambivalence of both the rich and poor in the opportunities and life decisions of the young people; the former struggle with social constraints and the latter with economic ones. Yet both suffer.
The mothers (Youssef’s and his half sister’s) in both cases want to help their children, but what they do is never enough. In the end, the city and the slums are made for men, even if they don’t even succeed. As devastating as the novel is, Lalami does an extraordinary job of communicating different voices and polar-opposite realities that share the same space, traditions and familial love. Despite narrating a story that could have happen ten years ago, the novel remains recent as young adults from vulnerable backgrounds living in Casablanca and Fes still face harsh realities and essentially — hopelessness.
About Laila Lalami
Lalami was born in Rabat, Morocco in 1968. She studied in Morocco, the UK and the US, where she continues to live and works at a university. The Secret Son is her second novel, she then wrote The Moor’s Account, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her most recent novel, The Other Americans, will be out on March 26, 2019. She is interested in immigration both in Los Angeles and in Morocco, and the parallelisms between the two.
OTHER BOOKS WRITTEN BY MOROCCAN WOMEN
Which book do you recommend? Please let us know in the comment section!
Moroccan initiatives and projects that support and empower girls and women
This organization started in Rabat helping out women who had suffered domestic violence and social exclusion (this topic is present in The Secret Son) mostly through advocacy efforts. Today, it helps women and girls with activities including: educational programs, preschools for the beneficiaries’ children, international collaboration and skill development workshops. It is also working with the UN Women’s Safe Cities initiative to provide a safe environment for women and girls in Moroccan cities.
The Map of Fiction by Women 