Watch Us Dance
A Novel
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
The rebellions within an interracial family play out against the countercultural rebellions of the 1960s in this sexy, stylish, sophisticated new novel by the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny and In the Country of Others.
It’s the 1960s, and the air is electric. On the cusp of adulthood, two biracial siblings—their father is Moroccan, their mother French—search for their place in a newly independent Morocco brimming with both possibility and peril.
Aicha, strong-willed and strait-laced, aspires to become a doctor and spends most of her time studying. Her free-spirited younger brother, Selim, falls in with the American and European hippies descending en masse on Tangier and Casablanca and Essaouira to do drugs and practice free love. Children of the revolution, now dreaming of a radiant future and experiencing the ecstatic first flush of desire against the backdrop of a country intoxicated by its own sense of freedom, Aicha and Selim soon find the ideals of their youth colliding with the realities of racism and corruption, as Moroccans once united against their colonizer make a grab for wealth and influence, and the national spirit of communal celebration gives way to elites telling everyone else to “watch us dance.”
In her latest international bestseller, Leila Slimani draws on her family’s inspiring story to deliver a tense, provocative, page-turning novel about one family’s, and one country’s, coming of age in the face of the seductions of power and privilege.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Slimani draws on her family's history for a sprawling tale of 1960s Morocco, the second installment in a planned trilogy (after In the Country of Others). The central couple, Amine Belhaj and his French wife, Mathilde, are now middle-aged and unexpectedly prosperous, the family farm having done surprisingly well. Their bookish daughter, Aicha, is studying medicine in France, while their son, Selim, is less ambitious, spending his days swimming in the Belhajs' swimming pool—an unheard-of luxury for the time and place—and embarking on an incestuous affair with his aunt, the depressed and beautiful Selma. In the background, following the country's recent independence from France, Moroccan people struggle with disillusionment. The new king, Hassan II, whose reign is marked by state violence, is a constant presence. In an early chapter, Amine, gratified by the sovereign's interest in agriculture, hangs a framed photograph of Hassan II in his office. Later, Aicha's future husband, Mehdi, fatefully skips the king's 42nd birthday party, during which there's a coup attempt. Though the surfeit of characters and vertiginous plot points tend to throttle the momentum, Slimani continues to prove herself a powerful writer by delivering a convicing and immersive depiction of a complicated era in Morocco's history. It's an accomplished portrait of a time and place, though it comes at the expense of a fully realized family saga.
