EIGHT MONTHS ON GHAZZAH STREET: Hilary Mantel

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No, I'm sure. It was very trying when they took your wheels off. It was quite common though. You could never plan on being anywhere by a set time." sour. So now when you were off to Jeddah, people said, "Don't fall off any balconies, will you?" It became monotonous. And their talk had left an image in her mind--which she did not like but could not now eradicate--the

unsought, unexpected, undeserved -- and cruel enough to dwarf the petty ignorance and coarseness of the expatriate communities. Though all Mantel's novels illumine societal evils -- be it the British class system in An Experiment in Love, the malevolent interplay between personality and public events in A Place of Greater Safety or colonialism in A Change of Climate -- Eight Months on Ghazzah Street is perhaps Mantel's most overtly political work. Her outrage against a society that virtually imprisons women, mutilates thieves, stones adulterers and disappears over-curious intruders is palpable." - Charlotte Innes, The Los Angeles Times now, dribbling a little onto their airline blankets. There was a sound of subdued laughter; brief-cases intruded into the aisles. The steward relented. He leaned over her seat. "Listen, if anything goes wrong, if by some mischance In the company of other expats, her sarcasm is unrestrained. The reality is that a woman’s testimony is worth nothing; and that foreigners are automatically suspect. Crucially, her concerns about a shadowy presence and someone crying in the supposedly empty flat above, are dismissed as a kind of cabin fever on the one hand, and a dangerous interference on the other.

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This months book club read was chosen by one of our dear members. I was really interested in the choice as I had heard so much about Hilary Mantel and knew that Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies were mega popular (but a bit big for a one-month turnaround for book club, so grateful for that they weren’t recommended!) Well, it can't be such a grand life, because he's just signed up with Turadup himself. He's going to manage their Jeddah business; he's had experience out there, of course." Eight Months in Ghazzah Street, originally published in 1988, came much recommended by visitors to this blog. It turned out to be a superb, insidiously creepy read, the kind of story that gets under the skin and has you throwing glances over your shoulder to make sure no one’s watching you. Repression and secrecy

now; the air was cooling, the sun dipping behind the hill. "What was Jeff Pollard doing, recruiting you? I thought he was trying to persuade everybody what a grand life it was as a freelance consultant?" pleasures of moral censure, the frisson of violent death in faraway places. The press reports had left an image in people's minds: of lazy, glitzy, transient lives, of hard liquor and easy money, of amoral people turned scared and That would be plain greedy," she said, "having children so that you could get their school fees paid." I don't believe they should ever have sent him. Trouble with Fairfax, he's got no credibility. They treat him like some bit of a kid." an aura of lurking menace, not to mention the tantalizing riddle of the strange sounds that emanate from the supposedly vacant apartment above the Shores' temporary quarters.No, not really," she said. "I think I was just there for too long. I liked it, in a way. At least, I'm glad I went there. I wouldn't have missed it." street full of new faces. It was true that you could go as far as Johannesburg now without steeling yourself for the journey over dirt roads; it ought to have been an advantage, but in fact it made life too easy. They were a direct connection We could be in and out within three years," he said. "Your salary is paid in riyals, tax-free. All you need out of it is your day-to-day living expenses and you can bank the rest where you like, in any currency you like. Turadup are offering three nights in succession, he had sat by himself, seemingly disconsolate, on a corner stool in the bar of an expatriate club, not even looking her way, but concentrating hard; until she had asked him to go home with her. She had fed her

Well, I take your word for it. But still, what a hole it is, Gaborone. Bunch of tarts sitting in the dust outside selling woolly hats. Sit by the pool, play the fruit machines, bugger all else to do." He paused, the tirade halted by a scruple of politeness. "Was that where you lived?" Oh no," she said. "I'd have to go around with a headscarf on all day. I couldn't put up with that." He was hovering, waiting to tell her some horror stories. There were always stories out of the Middle East, and no doubt Jeff Pollard would have told her some, if he had not been so anxious to recruit Andrew for his building project. But her tone wrapped up the conversation. "Sure on that brandy?" the steward said; and moved away. The slightest encouragement, and he would have asked, "Do you remember that Helen Smith case?" The development of this mystery and its denouement are not the most effective pieces of the novel. The frustration and futility of trying to find out exactly how the tragedy unfolds is more poignant than the actual events. In fact, this gothic part of the story is almost a subplot, or a symbol for the much more mundane corruption that is portrayed throughout the novel. He was hovering, waiting to tell her some horror stories. There were always stories out of the Middle East, and no doubt Jeff Pollard would have told her some, if he had not been so anxious to recruit Andrew for his building project. But her tone wrapped

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gloomy apartment has been walled shut to keep a former female occupant from accidentally encountering a male neighbor; newspapers carry cautionary tales of adulterous wives stoned to death; Frances can't even walk alongside the dusty Based on Mantel's own experiences in Saudi Arabia, [1] the novel explores different peoples' struggles with the contrast in cultures, including those of people of different Islamic cultures, and misunderstandings between the Saudis and Westerners, as well as between women and men. [2] Mantel felt the book anticipated later developments in the culture clash between Islam and the West: "I felt a bit frustrated because as events developed, I had a sort of I-told-you-so feeling." [3] Reception [ edit ] Mantel builds up the tension slowly but surely, revealing Frances’ increasing sense of foreboding through diary entries that are interspersed throughout the third-person narrative. It’s a highly effective device.

you an open mind, and discretion, and common sense; if you have those with you, you can manage anywhere. I make large claims for myself, she thought. She pushed up the window shade and looked out, into featureless darkness. There was no When a crime does occur, the expat advice is not to call in authorities, because often it’s the witnesses who end up in gaol and the crime is never solved anyway. Frances struggles with this cynicism: she doesn’t want to make judgements about Saudi society and she cringes when her oblivious fellow expats cross the line into cultural superiority and racism. But she is caught in a bind: hypocrisy and corruption is everywhere, and she is not able to ignore it because she is repeatedly warned by her husband’s employers, colleagues, and their wives, that she must be aware of it and yet act as if it doesn’t exist. It is (literally) dangerous to do otherwise. Andrew's letters had been short, practical. They told her to bring flat sandals, British postage stamps, a bottle of Bovril. His voice on the phone had been hesitant. There had been the odd, expensive silence. He didn't know how to describe Jeddah. She must, he said, see for herself. Mantel's depiction of the mortal threat of living in a country that has no rule of law is devastatingly realistic. Her biting and brutal humor seems at time like satire -- except there's no exaggeration involved. The Pakistani neighbor of the protagonist, Frances Shore, tries to reassure her by explaining that they don't really stone adulteresses any more -- they throw a few token stones then shoot her. "I was so relieved," Frances wrote mordantly in her diary. The British expats discuss some of the more famous customs of the country, like cutting off the hands of thieves, by noting in passing that they use anesthetic and have doctors standing by to bind up the wound.

Described on its cover as "A Middle Eastern Turn of the Shrew with an insidious power to grip", I was drawn to the book in a way that I wouldn't with her dictionary-sized hist-fic novels. So Frances rarely risks it. She stays in, and learns about her new home from her husband and his colleagues, and her neighbours. Yasmin and her wheeler-dealer husband Raji are from Pakistan, and there’s a Saudi couple: Samira and her elusive husband Abdul Nasr. Both novels have a kind of defiant toughness that's especially striking when one reads them together. It's difficult to think of another writer who portrays evil goings-on in third world countries without suggesting (as do E. M. Forster, Paul Mantel carefully builds up the story, horror replacing the stifling boredom of the place as she progresses.