B as in Beirut by Iman Humaydan Younes: book review

B as in Beirut (2008) is Younes’ first novel. Set in Beirut, Lebanon, during the civil war (1975-1990), it is predominantly about the latter years of the conflict.

Four women in one building write their narrative about the conflict, their childhood and the way life was before the war, their loves, their lives and the affects of the conflict on their well-being. Each is narrated in the first person by Lilian, Warda, Camilia, and Maha.

Lilian always has her suitcases packed and ready to leave. As she is continually waiting and wanting to be somewhere else, she is struck by Maha’s “unusual ability to wait.” Her husband Talal cannot write after an accident leaves him without a hand. She plans a new life for their two school-aged children in Australia. But first Lilian has to go to the Australian consul in Cyprus.

Warda loved her balcony of flowers and vines on the first floor – that was before it became too dangerous – and she loved to take her dog for a walk – that was before he disappeared. She loved her 8-year-old daughter too, who remained with her husband in the Gulf, and then America. “I keep running: from Beirut, to the Gulf, to America.” But on her return home to Beirut, she is trapped there. Warda retreats to the darkness of her apartment, with curtains drawn, while she is waiting, and waiting, for a visa to America. She is going crazy with waiting, and with the loss of her daughter, and with her chronic seizures.

Camilia has been living in London for six years, and wants to return home to Beirut to make a film about the militiamen and those who continued living along the frontlines of the war. She never did want to stay in her hometown in the south of Lebanon – she yearned for Beirut, and then further afield. But now she wants to settle back in Beirut, with her two relationships – a doctor 20 years older than her, and a young militiaman. She liked visiting Muhammad’s apartment, “full of colors and books.” And although her relationship with young Ranger displeases people, she says it’s “necessary for the film … of course.”

Maha has never left her apartment during the entire war, unlike everyone else. She has watched her city change, and the lives of people change, along with their hopes and dreams. When Camilia came to live with her, she was angered by her relationship with Ranger: a most inappropriate situation. But Ranger started visiting every day, and he ensured that Maha’s apartment had electricity. At the most intense period of fighting, Ranger stayed. But as the war is about to end, the building is shelled. For Maha, Camilia, and Ranger – as everyone else has left the building – their world changes dramatically once more.

Each woman tells her own story, but in doing so, the reader builds an image of each woman from another woman’s point of view. The reader comes to know why their dreams and hopes are important, and how the conflict affects their outcomes – over the period of the fifteen-and-a-half year war: the waiting, the hoping, the planning, the determination, the loss, the losses, and all the while the gradual but constant restriction and isolation. But the novel also reveals the coping mechanisms of each woman – and their breaking points.