Wall of Dust

Readers have called it “breathtaking,” visually dramatic, even “cinematic.” Wall of Dust does what few novels about the Middle East do: it respects each of its characters as a human being, whether Israeli or Arab, Jew or Muslim. All are caught in a situation not of their own making, and no matter what their allegiances, they are still individuals, subject to all the anxiety and doubts that afflict us all.

Aisha, a Palestinian schoolteacher who has lost most of her class in a missile attack, becomes deranged and begins a strange ritual, throwing stones at the separation barrier between Israel and the West Bank.

Zev is an Israeli sniper who watches her, wondering what sort of madwoman she is, while sorting out his own feelings of being rejected by his mother as “unclean.”

Idith is an Israeli grandmother who volunteers for Machsom Watch, an organization that monitors Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank. Her daughter has emigrated to California. Maybe she should too.

Hussein is a shadowy figure with the Islamic resistance. He is charged with observing Aisha to determine whether she should be stopped or ignored. But he finds it hard to make a decision and wonders why.

Their lives intersect.

“Timely and timeless,” Wall of Dust is a novel of heartbreaking loss, yet also of the persistence of hope.