Crescent [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Diana Abu-Jaber (Author), Nike Doukas (Reader), Marcelo Tubert (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 2003

An Arab-American Chocolat—a sensual blend of food, love and longing.

Half-Iraqi, half-American Sirine is a cook at Nadia's Cafe, which draws the neighborhood's Arab students, expatriates, and exiles. All are hungry for "real true Arab food" and connection to their homes. One is Hanif Al Eyad, a new hire in the Near Eastern Studies Department at the university who fled Iraq as a young man. Sirine and Han fall in love over food: a baklava they make together, delicate lamb dishes, hummus glistening with olive oil.

Populated by colorful and memorable characters—the lovely Sirine; the handsome Han; Sirine's story-telling uncle, whose fantastic fables are woven into the novel; a poet named Aziz; Nadia and her daughter Mireille—Crescent explores the universal themes of love and loyalty to countries old and new, to those left behind, and to tradition. Some of the characters are learning to live in one country and let go of another, and some are not—a fact that sparks a surprising ending.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's a positive relief to read a novel that treats Iraqis as real people. Diana Abu-Jaber's second novel, Crescent, is set in Los Angeles and peopled by immigrants and Iraqi-Americans. Thirty-nine-year-old, half-Arab Sirine is a chef in a Lebanese restaurant. Her uncle works at the university with Han, an Iraqi-born academic who begins frequenting Sirine's restaurant, drawn by her beauty and her exquisite cooking. Part of the book's charm is in its determination to impart the sheer glamour of Arabia, here personified in Han's face: "Sirine watches Han and for a moment it seems that she can actually see the ancient traces in Han's face, the quality of his gaze that seems to originate from a thousand-thousand years of watching the horizon--a forlorn, beautiful gazing, rich and more seductive than anything she has ever seen." Too, the book addresses head-on the one-dimensional view Americans possess of Iraq. I used to read about Baghdad in Arabian Nights," says one American character. "It was all about magic and adventurers. I thought that's what it was like there. And when I got older Baghdad turned into the stuff about war and bombs--the place on the TV set. I never thought about there being any kind of normal life there." As she falls more deeply in love with Han, Sirine discovers that part of being Iraqi now means learning to live with not knowing: not knowing where people have disappeared to, not knowing if your family is alive or dead. In the book's thrilling, romantic denouement, these lessons come perilously close to Sirine's Los Angeles home. Crescent brings alive a vibrant community of exiled academics, immigrants on the make, and optimistic souls looking for love. --Claire Dederer --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Abu-Jaber (Arabian Jazz) weaves the story of a love affair between a comely chef and a handsome, haunted Near Eastern Studies professor together with a fanciful tale of a mother's quest to find her wayward son in this beautifully imagined and timely novel, which explores private emotions and global politics with both grace and conviction. Green-eyed, 39-year-old Sirine cooks up Arab specialties in a bustling cafe in Los Angeles where Arab students gather for a taste of home. When her doting uncle, who raised her after the death of her relief-worker parents 30 years ago, introduces her to his colleague Hanif, the placid surface of her life is disturbed. Their affair begins quickly and ardently, as Sirine, who has heretofore equated cooking with love, discovers the pleasures of romance, and the exiled Han struggles to feel grounded in a place far from the Baghdad he loved as a boy. In Abu-Jaber's sensuous prose, the city is as lush and fragrant as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and her secondary characters, like the wry, wise cafe owner Um-Nadia and the charmingly narcissistic poet and satyr Aziz, are appealingly eccentric. But a darkly troubled photographer drawn to both Sirine and Han, news of Saddam Hussein's latest atrocities and Han's painful memories of his imprisoned brother and his disappeared sister, for whose fates he feels responsible, cloud their affair, perhaps dooming it. Abu-Jaber's poignant contemplations of exile and her celebration of Sirine's exotic, committed domesticity-almond cookies, cardamom, and black tea with mint-help make this novel feel as exquisite as the "flaming, blooming" mejnoona tree behind Nadia's Cafe.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: HighBridge Company; Abridged edition (April 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565117743
• ISBN-13: 978-1565117747
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,854,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diana Abu-Jaber's new novel, Origin, is a literary psychological thriller which has received starred reviews from both Publisher's Weekly and Booklist.

She has also written three other books, including her memoir-with-recipes, entitled The Language of Baklava, which was a Border's Original Voices selection and was included in Best Food Writing 2005. It also won the 2006 Northwest Booksellers' Award.

Her novel, Crescent (W.W. Norton), won the PEN Center Award for Literary fiction and the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award. It was also named a Notable Book of the Year by the Christian Science Monitor. Her first novel, Arabian Jazz (W.W. Norton) won the Oregon Book award.

Abu-Jaber currently teaches at Portland State University and divides her time between Portland, Oregon and Miami, Florida.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delight for all the senses, June 16, 2003

By 

Maureen Clifford (Salem, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crescent: A Novel (Hardcover)

Diana Abu-Jaber's lush tale of cooking, love, longing, and exile set against the US's ongoing conflict with Iraq stirs the soul and totally fills the senses.

Crescent is a love story between an L.A.-born and -bred, green-eyed, half-Arab blonde chef and an exiled Iraqi intellectual with a mysterious past. Interwoven into the Sirine and Han's love story is the fable of Abdelrahman Salahadin, told by Sirine's uncle, the gently devoted man who raises her after her parents are killed overseas when Sirine is nine years old. Both Abdelrahman's destiny and Sirine and Han's love unfold amid lush surroundings, complete with the heady aromas of Middle Eastern food and the fragrance of the mejnoona tree, which blooms behind the busy café where Sirine works.

Anyone who appreciates either good food or a good love story will find Crescent an absolute delight. Crescent is beautiful and sensual and languid all at the same time, like a perfect Spring day in Oregon.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightfully Delicious...., July 17, 2003

By 

Marion "[e-mail]" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Crescent: A Novel (Hardcover)

The scents, scenes and stories from this book will follow me for the rest of my life. I felt somehow changed inside when I finished the last page---enlightened and educated about Middle Eastern people and in awe of their myths, food and lives. I came away changed, enchanted and wanting to visit the Baghdad of Han and Sirine's story. Ms. Abu-Jaber has woven a beautiful, intricate, sweet-scented tale of love, food, families and life. The descriptions of the food made such an impression on me that I went and found some of the recipes from the story to make for myself so I could experience the flavors and make them my own. I highly recommend this book...I wish that all Americans could read this to better understand the culture of the Middle East.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A crescent moonexquisite in its incompleteness", May 4, 2004

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crescent: A Novel (Paperback)

Abu-Jaber's latest novel, Crescent, is a lyrical tale of love, family and tradition, peopled with characters of Arabian descent, who live in an enclave in the heart of Los Angeles, California. Whether Iranian, Lebanese, Iraqi or Jordanian, all have in common the longing to return to the homelands of their youth, impossible given the socio-economic and political changes of the last decades.

The author speaks particularly to the Iraqi exiles, in a poignant portrayal of their memories, folktales and family connections. She does so in poetic phrases that remind this reader of the prolific Alice Hoffman, as page after page is filled with such deeply moving images, sounds and smells that Crescent redefines cultural stereotypes, allowing each individual his/her own identity.

The most important ingredient in this tasty concoction is the Arab-American Sirine, a master cook of ethnic delicacies at Nadia's Café, a Lebanese establishment, where students and other patrons gather to enjoy familiar dishes and discussions of their native countries. While current events swirl around her, Sirine blithely attends to the meals she lovingly prepares, stirring long-buried memories of her childhood longing for absentee parents, who travel to distant lands in an effort at humanitarian aid. When, finally, her parents fail to return home, Sirine quietly closes her heart against further loss.

When an exiled Iraqi professor of literature catches Sirine's eye, she is unable to resist, suddenly vulnerable to the characteristic emotions of incipient romance, the excitement and passion of the moment. The charismatic Hanif Al Eyad introduces reality into the developing love affair; Han has a past as an exile from Iraq in his early twenties, a past that Sirine must acknowledge if they are to progress toward the necessary intimacy of a meaningful relationship. The tender love scenes have subtle touches of eroticism, a heady mix of that wonderful confusion of the first days of love. But Sirine resists asking about Han`s life before her, only begrudgingly admitting the importance of his past on their future.

An Arab-American, Sirine struggles with Han's attachment to the history that defines him, the siren-song of exile that was once irresistible, but has now cut him off from the beating heart of his country. With innate instinct, Sirine treads carefully in this vulnerable place, exquisitely aware of the delicate balance of the relationship. Once Sirine opens her heart to Han's story, the weight of the novel moves from the euphoria of beginning love to the revelation of faults and flaws, the human frailties that allow forgiveness. Her innocence shattered, Sirine learns the import of emotional commitment, the balance between pleasure and pain; through this experience, she becomes a more fully-defined woman.

Many reviews hail Crescent as an erotic, sensual love story, but Abu-Jaber has written more than a simple romance, drawing the reader beneath the surface of the Arab community. With myriad complexities and allegiances, the idiosyncratic characters bring their experience, memories and family stories to Nadia's Café. With passionate longing, they examine life in exile from beloved countries of origin, a universality of experience: "When we walk away from home, we fall in love with our sadness".

Abu-Jaber's prose is transcendent, as rich as the pastries Sirine serves to her customers; with bits of spice and sugar, the phrases meld together, fable and truth creating memory. We struggle to understand cultural and ideological differences in a world made smaller by communications, yet obscured by the barriers of language and tradition. Abu-Jaber welcomes us inside spice-scented, fragrant rooms where families gather for comfort, much the same as early American immigrants from Ireland and Italy, sharing familial traditions and hopes for the future. Crescent offers a rich, exuberant experience, one that leaves this reader as satisfied as an exotic meal topped off with a serving of vanilla ice cream, the perfect combination of the unexpected and the familiar. In a blend of cultural diversity and the banality of daily life in America, this author invites us to the bountiful buffet of humanity, a feast of the best we have to offer. Luan Gaines/ 2004.