Summary

The novel begins without a chapter title or heading, in the first person voice, beginning, “I was born without a voice” (1). She goes on to explain that voicelessness is part of the condition of being female. She explains how the reader has never heard this story before, but has seen the women (or “us”) walking in New York City, and South Brooklyn (1). She tells the reader to travel to Bay Ridge, seventy-second street to number 545 where “our family lives” (2). But the page and her perspective ends as she explains the story does not begin in Bay Ridge but begins before she was born in Palestine in 1990.

Page 3 starts a new chapter titled “Isra” and beneath it, “Birzeit, Palesine; Spring 1990” (3). It begins as Isra Hadid cooks dinner with her mother. Her mother explains before the evening prayer they will have guests, and tells Isra...