Evil Eye

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No Man returns with a striking exploration of the expectations of Palestinian-American women,the meaning of a fulfilling lifeand the ways our unresolved pasts affect our presents. Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in BrooklynYara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. She’s gotten to follow her dreamscompleting an undergraduate degree in Art and landing a good job at the local college. As a traditional wifeshe also raises their two school-aged daughterstakes care of the houseand has dinner ready when her husband gets home. With her family balanced with her professional ambitionsYara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother’s. So why doesn’t it feel like enough? After her dream of chaperoning a student trip to Europe evaporates and she responds to a colleague’s racist provocationYara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counseling to keep her position. Her mother blames a family curse for the trouble she’s facingand while Yara doesn’t really believe in old superstitionsshe still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy with her mother’s warning and the possibility of falling victim to the same mistakes. Shaken to the core by these indictments of her lifeYara finds her carefully constructed world beginning to implode. To save herselfYara must reckon with the reality that the difficulties of the childhood she thought she left behind have very real–and damaging–implications not just on her own future but that of her daughters.