Eight Months on Ghazzah Street

Book 43 (I think) is Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, described by critics as a Middle Eastern Turn of the Screw. I have vague memories of Turn of the Screw from high school English. Two children and their possessed governess in England.

Anyway, in Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, Frances Shore and her engineer husband move to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Instead of living in an apartment complex for British ex-pats, the Shores live in a sublet on Ghazzah Street with Saudi nationals and other Muslims.

Though she ventures out into the city, most of Frances' days are spent alone in their apartment or visiting the two housewives who also live in the building. She keeps a travel diary, goes on the roof to get some sun, and listens to the goings-on in the other apartments, especially the supposedly empty apartment above theirs. Frances decides to investigate and her suspicions increase throughout their eight months on Ghazzah Street. Some parts of the book were slow, but my interest grew alongside Frances' suspicions.

I liked this description of the supermarket: "The supermarkets are all well stocked, but there is always some elusive item; this breeds the desire to go to more supermarkets. shopping is the highest good in Saudi life. Every need and whim under one roof--Lebanese pastries, a Mont Blanc pen, a diamond snake with emerald eyes; a pound of pistachio nuts, two tickets to Bermuda, a nylon prayer rug with built-in compass. Perhaps some blueberry cheesecake ice cream, and Louis Quinze fauteuil; a new Toyota, and a portrait of the King. The car parks consume acres, the facades glitter like knives" (Mantel 96).

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street is part travel journal, albeit not a very factual one, and part mystery.