Death is Hard Work: A Novel

by Khaled Khalifa Narrated by Neil Shah

Overview

Death Is Hard Work is the new novel from the greatest chronicler of Syria's ongoing and catastrophic civil war: a tale of three ordinary people facing down the stuff of nightmares armed with little more than simple determination.



Abdel Latif, an old man from the Aleppo region, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in Damascus. His final wish, conveyed to his youngest son, Bolbol, is to be buried in the family plot in their ancestral village of Anabiya. Though Abdel was hardly an ideal father, and though Bolbol is estranged from his siblings, this conscientious son persuades his older brother Hussein and his sister Fatima to accompany him and the body to Anabiya, which is-after all-only a two-hour drive from Damascus. There's only one problem: Their country is a war zone.



With the landscape of their childhood now a labyrinth of competing armies whose actions are at once arbitrary and lethal, the siblings' decision to set aside their differences and honor their father's request quickly balloons from a minor commitment into an epic and life-threatening quest. Syria, however, is no longer a place for heroes, and the decisions the family must make along the way-as they find themselves captured and recaptured, interrogated, imprisoned, and bombed-will prove to have enormous consequences for all of them.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal - Audio

★ 05/01/2019

Abdel Latif makes his dying wish, to be buried in his home village, known to his son Bolbol. Bolbol enlists his older brother, Hussein, and sister, Fatima, to accompany him in transporting the body from Damascus to Anabiya, near Aleppo, where relatives will comply with Abdel Latif's last wish. It's normally a two-hour drive, but Aleppo and Damascus, and everywhere in between, are on opposite sides of a civil war. This surreal tale discloses the myriad tyrannies of war, loyalty, religion, duty, and bureaucracy. Can the family survive ten checkpoints, arrests, interrogations, and abuse? Can the corpse survive 48 hours on ice in a minivan? Nicely read by Neil Shah, who keeps Bolbol's narrative moving along. Descriptions of the physical and psychological absurdities of fear, stress, and decomposition are quite graphic and as often funny as they are disgusting. VERDICT Powerful and poignant, this audiobook is very highly recommended for adult fiction collections. ["Flawlessly translated and exquisitely written, this novel from the winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Prize is a genuine tour de force as well as a thoughtful and provocative examination of what it means to be alive": Xpress Reviews 4/19/19 starred review of the Farrar hc.]—Cliff Glaviano, formerly with Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH

NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

Neil Shah gives an eloquently unadorned narration of this modern quest novel, set in Syria. On his deathbed, Abdel asks his eldest son, Bolbol, to return his body to his ancestral burial ground. The journey is not far, yet it traverses the most dangerous part of the war-ravaged country. Bolbol enlists the help of his criminally suspect brother, Hussein, and his flighty sister, Fatima. There is little nuance in Shah’s narration, but the drama of the landscape and in the lives of the three siblings speaks for itself. Shah’s no-nonsense presentation of this short novel moves the action and its many digressions into the past lives of the dead man and his children. The story leaves listeners with an appreciation of the horrors of the Syrian war. D.G.P. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171475741
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	02/12/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos