THE ABDUCTOR

In lovely, lilting and sometimes devastatingly direct prose, Marouane, an Algerian-born journalist now living in Europe, tells the tragicomic story of a family of six Muslim daughters whose mother has been repudiated three times and thereby, under Islam, divorced by their volatile, clownish father, Aziz Zeitoun. He immediately regrets his action, but Nayla Zeitoun must marry and divorce someone else to be able to remarry Aziz, who chooses a kindly, idiosyncratic neighbor as the man for the job. In a poetic deadpan, Samira, the oldest daughter, relates the events—from madcap to horrifying—and her family's quirks: "My father had discovered Noria's passion for shoes when she was seven.... Since then the task of cleaning the shoes of the whole family had fallen to her. This she did scrupulously and sometimes happily, provided she was allowed to hum." One could chalk the characters' screwy psychologies up to severe family dysfunction or sexist cultural practices. But the interactions are so fraught, subtle and inexplicable—and always convincing—that social repression alone inadequately explains them. About midway through comes the twofold crux: a terribly violent encounter, and Selina's recovery of suppressed memories. The reader is stunned, but in retrospect it's clear that the violent and tragic potential lurked all along beneath the chaotic, funny and poignant surface. Throughout, the sisters' dialogue recalls Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things; Marouane deftly interleaves horror and humor via the speech and manner of exceptional children. Though the downward-spiraling second half could be slightly condensed, this novel is a gem. (June)

Forecast:Since this is a paperback original, reviewers may not notice Marouane's U.S. debut (her first book, La Fille de la Casbah , is not yet available in English), but just one or two well-placed, positive reviews could spur further coverage and sales.