Synopses & Reviews
A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mind
The Coin's narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene. And yet the ideal self, the ideal life, remains just out of reach: her inheritance is inaccessible, her homeland exists only in her memory, and her attempt to thrive in America seems doomed from the start.
In New York, she strives to put down roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, where her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler, and the two participate in a pyramid scheme reselling Birkin bags.
But America is stifling her--her willfulness, her sexuality, her principles. In an attempt to regain control, she becomes preoccupied with purity, cleanliness, and self-image, all while drawing her students into her obsessions. In an unforgettable denouement, her childhood memories converge with her material and existential statelessness, and the narrator unravels spectacularly.
In enthralling, sensory prose, The Coin explores nature and civilization, beauty and justice, class and belonging--all while resisting easy moralizing. Provocative, wry, and inviting, The Coin marks the arrival of a major new literary voice.
Review
"[A] hypnotic debut . . . Zaher's writing is deeply arresting,
especially when her narrator is energized by her newfound sense of
self-possession in New York, where she walks the streets wearing a
'violent' and 'sexual' perfume and carries a Birdekin bag, which
thrillingly transforms her into an object of desire . . . A tour de
force." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
"An absorbing fiction debut with a disquieting tale about race, class,
morality, and artifice . . . A perilous journey, rendered in sensuous
prose." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"When past and present, self-indulgence and self-loathing collide, the
result is a bold and terrifying reinvention . . . Brilliant." Booklist (starred review)
Review
"Wondrous . . . Capitalism, materialism, love, lust, friendship, purity,
the natural world, cleanliness, place, and self-image are all explored
in this thunderous, lightning-speed, fast-reading tale. Zaher, a
Jerusalem-born Palestinian, writes with passion and holds nothing back
in her buzzy, strong debut." Library Journal (starred review)
About the Author
Yasmin Zaher is a Palestinian journalist and writer born in 1991 in Jerusalem.
The Coin is her first novel.