In the late 1970s, Ziad Idilbi, a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, marries Salma, a Lebanese refugee escaping the war in Beirut. Resolving to start over for the very last time, the couple opens a corner store in Toledo, Ohio, across from the General Motors factory, where Toledo’s Arab community intermingles with the working class. Over the decades, whether it’s bigotry (pre- and post-9/11), financial ruin, or terminal illness, the Idilbis find themselves on life’s outskirts, attempting to build something new.
Achingly poignant and slyly funny, the linked stories in Carryout follow the Idilbis and their children as they teeter on the brink of catastrophe. Walid, the youngest child of Ziad and Salma, navigates the heartbreaks of youth as well as the colorful characters who haunt his parents’ corner store. As he grows up into a writer, Walid’s gaze fixes on his father and the long shadow of displacement and occupation. Mustafa, the eldest son, is forever trying to outrun the disasters that seem to seek him out, while Nawal, the only daughter, is dumped by a friend and hatches a scheme to win her back. Unsure whether to run toward each other or away from each other, the characters in Dudar’s exquisite debut suffer the absurdities and indignities of life in America with wry obstinance and striking wisdom.
“Carryout brings us one astonishingly vivid character after another in a collection that immerses you in a community of refugees laying claim to their portion of America. Dudar gives us what they have lost, what they have strived for, what they have created, and what they leave to their children with great sensitivity and just exquisite sentences. A delight to read, with moments of great beauty that linger.”—Phil Klay, author, Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War
“Dudar’s debut is an intricately linked story collection portraying the intersections of race and class in the lives of an immigrant community. You will cheer for these characters’ triumphs and mourn their losses. A powerful new literary voice!”—Susan Muaddi Darraj, author and Pen/Faulkner Finalist, Behind You Is the Sea
“There are so many stark truths in Dudar’s lyrical collection, and I felt so connected to the in-between lives described so carefully, so generously in its pages. Dudar writes with poise and maturity, with stories that veer from the darkly comic to the endearing to the tragic, never losing sight of one of the core truths of immigrant lives: that everything can feel borrowed and everything can so quickly fall apart. These are the sorts of stories that make a reader sit up and pay attention.”—Daniel Alarcón, author and journalist
“Dudar’s precise prose—clean yet rich in wit and wisdom—drew me in, but the subtle complexity and aching emotion he reveals in these family members kept me immersed in each of their stories. Dudar’s kindness and unique sense of curiosity bring fresh dimension to notions of language, borders, distances between us, dreams, memory, forgetting, forgiveness, and our longing to embrace ever-elusive certainty. The stories are short, yet span generations who must negotiate new worlds of shifting cultures that challenge the idea of self. Graceful, insightful, and engrossing, Carryout is an excellent read.”—Eugenia Kim, author, The Kinship of Secrets
“Told from multiple points of view, the linked stories in Carryout dramatize the lives of an Arab American family over the years in Toledo, Ohio. As we follow Walid, a central narrator, as he comes of age, we’re introduced to a vibrant and diverse community. These are moving, beautifully written and humorous stories that explore notions of home and belonging and the importance of family and community in memorable detail. A terrific debut.”—Ghassan Zeineddine, author, Dearborn
“To read Carryout is to be transported, to be changed. In rhythmic, lucid prose, Dudar renders his wide familial cast with equal parts compassion and precision, alighting on the surface of seemingly small moments to plumb for their beating hearts. There is desperation in these stories, a raw desire to fashion a life, both together and apart, amid the indignities and atrocities of America. I consumed this book.”—Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, author, Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare
“A portrait of the artist as a young man and a portrait of community in diaspora, this debut is as funny and tender and vibrant as the remarkable family at its center. In the grand tradition of writers like Vladimir Nabokov and Aleksandar Hemon, Dudar brings places to life with brilliant originality while also bringing to life the existential experience of displacement. Carryout is as exhilarating as it is necessary.”—Harriet Clark, author, The Hill
