Scattered like Seeds.

• Author: Han, Carolyn
• Position: Review

Shaw J. Dallal. Scattered like Seeds. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1998. 335 pages. Hardcover $29.95.

At the end of 2000, few Americans clearly understood the on-going conflicts between Jews and Palestinians. Although our newspapers reported information and disinformation on the "Peace Talks," we continued to view the issues from political perspectives. There is little news about the everyday lives of Palestinians, the people, "scattered like seeds."

Shaw J. Dallal, in his historical novel, intends to remedy the situation. Through the use of dialogue readers are immediately drawn into the story, which takes place in the early 1970s. We overhear private conversations and eavesdrop into the private life of Palestinian-American, Thafer Allam. Born in Jerusalem, he leaves Palestine for the safety of Kuwait, and later moves to the U. S. and attends Cornell University. As an undergraduate he marries Mary Pat, an Irish-American widow, with a baby daughter. During their marriage they have three children, two boys and a girl. In 1967, he is a successful lawyer, with a degree in nuclear physics, but something is missing from his life.

When the story opens, he and Mary Pat are discussing the full-scale war in the Middle East. This event triggers flashbacks of his boyhood in Jerusalem during 1938, when British troopers searched his family home. "Why do they want to search our house, Mama?" he asks. "They want to give our country to the Jews," (p. 4) she answers. In his New York house, far from his homeland, he wonders if his mother will be safe this time.

Thafer Allam expresses a desire to return to the land of his birth. His wife tells him to, "Stop thinking like that. You're an American now" (p. 11). His children feel distanced from him as he broods over the Arab-Israeli War. He is startled when his daughter announces that her friends and teacher are glad that Israel won. She wants to know how he feels? Thafer Allam is torn between his love of his adopted country, the United States, which has backed Israel, and that of his homeland, Palestine.

Loss is a central theme. Mary Pat who symbolizes what is good in America, dies. Her death and the Arab defeat bring past losses to the surface. Loss of homeland. Loss of family. Loss of identity. At Mary Pat's grave side, he places flowers and says, "I'm here again. I never realized how lonely it would be without you" (p. 23). Driving home he sings a refrain from a song that Mary Pat sang around the...