No Place Strange

A novel about connections made and lost, No Place Strange follows four people affected by the actions of a female terrorist named Rafa Ahmed. Lydia is a young Jewish Canadian woman running from the truth about her fatherâ??s involvement with Rafa, who may be implicated in his murder. Lydia escapes to Greece, where she meets Farid, a young Lebanese man who has left his home for Athens. Faridâ??s mother Mariam, once Rafaâ??s professor, is struggling to maintain a normal life in Beirut in the midst of civil war, while his cousin Mouna is a political activist dangerously obsessed with Rafa. Lydia and Farid fall in love, but any possibility for real happiness is jeopardized by Arabâ??Israeli hostilities, the capriciousness of fate, and a past that neither of them can quite escape. Bryden weaves these stories together with a poetâ??s precision of language and a candid view of human nature, exploring the tension between two violently opposing worldsâ??between truth and beliefâ??while spinning an achingly believable love story.

Youâ??d have to be crazy to try to make satisfying fiction out of a complex political situation that pisses off everybody on all sides. So give credit to Diana Fitzgerald Bryden for pulling it off...

How does one begin to condense a topic as complex as Arab-Israeli relations into a manageable story without either losing readers or alienating one side? If youâ??re Diana Fitzgerald Bryden, you do it through a good old-fashioned love story. No Place Strange is a complex and ambitious debut novel that succeeds on many levels. The female characters are especially strong, and Bryden paints a picture of life in wartorn Beirut that is both tragic and mundane. The love story gets a bit lost along the way, but with an ending that hints at a brighter future, that detail is easily forgiven.