Swimming Toward the Light

Leone draws on her heritage in her uneven debut, a flawed novel about a dysfunctional Lebanese Christian immigrant family living in 1950s Washington, D.C. The daughter of a meek father and tyrannical mother, Irene Awtooah is gifted with a magnificent voice, but singing is forbidden in her joyless home. When Irene is 14, two neighborhood women—non-Lebanese "outsiders"—hear Irene singing and offer her free music lessons, but Mama, who married at 13 and had her first child at 14, sabotages Irene's lessons and crushes her spirit, sending the girl into a downward spiral. Though the story is Irene's, it's narrated by Irene's sister, Lottie, who remains needlessly opaque throughout. Also, Mama's viciousness is never made believable. Readers may be seduced by the Mideast immigrant angle, but the story and storytelling are disappointing. (Mar.)