Lonely Planet the Gates of Damascus

Lonely Planet has chosen to launch a new line of travel literature books with this well-written reminiscence of a stay in Syria. Belgium-born Joris visited her Muslim friend Hala and Hala's 11-year-old daughter in Damascus, and she recounts their life in a fundamentalist society. Hala's husband was jailed as a political prisoner when their child was an infant, and her fear of the dreaded mukhabarat or secret police is pervasive. The women spend evenings at home, where they relax in their nightgowns and endlessly discuss Hala's relationship with her husband. She is allowed to visit him, bring changes of clothing as the seasons change and take home trinkets he crafts in jail, but she has fallen in love with someone else and is unsure what she would do when and if he is released. Anxious to see more of Syria, the author goes on a desert walking trip with a group of Syrian Christians, whose sympathy for President Assad is markedly different from Hala's views. The author, who remains a shadowy presence, keeps her own politics largely hidden, although she objects to Hala's rabid anti-Semitism. More about Joris, how she met Hala, or even when this trip took place would have been helpful. As it is, the book offers an interesting portrait of women's daily life in modern Damascus, even if its appeal is limited by the author's personal reticence (May)