On to Fiction: Isabella Hammad

Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Set mostly in the West Bank, this complex novel involves a personal struggle, a family struggle, and a professional struggle, all against a political struggle. And there are many ghosts. All skillfully woven together. The characters are vivid and differentiated and likeable. Some are Israeli-Arabs and some Palestinians from the West Bank, between which there are sometimes tensions, and Sonia from the diaspora. Sonia, an actor from London, visits her sister who teaches at a Hebrew University for a break from her career and her love life. There are secrets–or at least events/thoughts that have not been revealed–between the sisters, between sisters and father, between an uncle (father’s brother) and the sisters. These against the challenges of casting, practicing, and producing Hamlet. All these tensions keep the plot moving and the interest flowing.

In an interesting move, there are moments–usually at rehearsals–told in the form of a play. For me this both reminded me they were performing and allowed for condensation of detail. When there are play lines the character indicated isn’t the Shakespearean character’s name but the actors, which keeps focus on the characters in the novel. Of course it helps to know the play, but there is enough explanation of the plot that one doesn’t have to. The group is performing the play in Arabic, and Hammond uses an Arabic translation that she translates into English, so the words are not always identical to speeches one may have memorized. They are always recognizable.

I have already requested her first novel and I look forward to Hammad writing more.





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