Summary

Matar continues to allow the reader a glimpse into his past with this chapter, focusing on the brief window of time when his family lived in Qaddafi's Libya. As an army officer under the recently deposed King Irdis, Matar's father was immediately imprisoned upon Qaddafi's rise to power. Five months later, he was released and given a minor administrative role in Libya's Mission to the United Nations in New York. Despite this rough start, Matar contends that his father "had high hopes for the new regime" (31). In the span of three years, this optimism faded as "Qaddafi abrogated all existing laws and declared himself de facto leader forever," which, paired with the violent suppression of any opposition to the regime, inspired his father to return to Libya and form his resistance group (30-31).

While Matar's family was living in Libya, his mother tried...