TOO SOON

Betty Shamieh

This reading group guide for Too Soon includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Betty Shamieh. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

Too Soon is a funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut that explores exile, ambition, and hope across three generations of Palestinian American women.

Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic—that might garner international attention—in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster . . .

With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family’s epic journey fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. Too Soon opens with Arabella recalling the painful alienation she felt at the very moment when her city was united in grief and fear from their shared experience living through 9/11. When her fellow theatre artists gathered in community, she remained silent rather than open up about her feelings: “Not a day goes by where I don’t feel haunted and hunted. Every day is like September 11 for me. Welcome to how I feel all the time” (page 4). Why do you think Arabella chose silence? How does the feeling of being “hunted” determine her character throughout the novel?

2. As a schoolgirl in Palestine in the 1920s, Zoya led her friends in acting out skits where schoolgirls defeated British soldiers using the power of wit and comedy: “As we face their firing squad, they’ll let us have a few last words. We will use that opportunity to tell a joke. . . . A joke to end all jokes! Their soldiers will be overcome. Double over with laughter. They will be disarmed!” (page 111). What are some other examples of how characters wield humor in Too Soon? In what ways does humor empower the powerless, and in what ways is it limited?

3. For her entire adult life, Arabella has been attracted to Yoav, her closest friend and frequent partner in her theatrical work: “Yoav was the person I trusted more than anyone else in a room when I was directing. And when I was directing was the only time I truly trusted myself” (page 20). How does her connection with Yoav reflect her relationship with herself? How does their bond and her sense of self evolve over the course of the novel?

4. Arabella dislikes being associated with Lisa-Turned-Layla, a fellow Palestinian theatre artist who has the same Ivy League credentials and diasporic background as Arabella. Why does she feel animosity toward Lisa-Turned-Layla? How does mocking her allow Arabella to deflect some uncomfortable feelings about herself?

5. As a young mother, Zoya loved to tell all her children stories starring female heroines rather than traditionally male characters. Naya remembers, “I understood how revolutionary it was for a mother of mostly daughters to change the genders of main characters so we could see ourselves as primary in the adventures of Aladdina, Alia Baba, and Sinbada” (page 237). In later years, however, Zoya focuses all her dreams on her only boy: “I would soon deem the feeding and clothing of daughters as a waste of family resources, depleting that which was supposed to go to our son” (page 169). Why do you think Zoya’s choices conflicted with the spirit of her storytelling? How did her beliefs change—or not change—over time?

6. Unlike Zoya and Naya, Arabella is not forced into an arranged marriage to a stranger, but her family still pressures her to marry a man within their community. How does this pressure cast a shadow over her relationship with Aziz? How does her imagined future with him contrast with her imagined future with Yoav?

7. Arabella tries to wriggle out of her commitment to direct Hamlet in Ramallah: “Touring a conflict zone full of armed settlers and soldiers? Not for me” (page 23). Later, she pledges to approach her trip “like it was a military mission. Get in, direct a play, get out” (page 95). On top of concern for her physical safety, she’s anxious about plunging into an emotional war zone. How do her fears come out in her conversations with Aziz and Lisa-Turned-Layla? How do her feelings surprise her once she arrives and experiences daily life in the West Bank?

8. Zoya’s family was able to get back on their feet in Detroit partially due to their connection to King Tut, a young Black man who stepped into the role of older son/big brother when Zoya’s own relatives shunned them. What forces ultimately separate King Tut from Zoya and her family? How does King Tut’s unshakable sense of justice influence Zoya and Naya over the decades?

9. As Arabella listens to Yoav’s mother, Indji, tell her life story, she experiences a shift in perspective: “Inviting a competing history into your worldview is disorienting. It flips a switch in your brain and your vision suddenly becomes kaleidoscopic. The shards of your people’s history are true and clear, but they don’t coalesce into a neat picture of saints and sinners” (page 89). Were you surprised by how Indji’s family story mirrors Arabella’s own family story? How does Arabella react to hearing it?

10. In Detroit in the 1960s, Palestinian refugee families like Zoya’s fear that their status as Arabs in America is deeply precarious. To escape anti-Arab prejudice, Zoya’s husband allows others to assume that his family is Greek. A generation later, Naya follows in her father’s footsteps by adopting the “camouflage” of wealthy Palo Alto women: “I might blend in if I dressed like the rest. So, if the American government tried to round up Arabs . . . might one of my neighbors come to our defense? To proclaim Naya and her family are just like us?” (page 269). For Arabella’s part, she’s upset that Lisa-Turned-Layla “outed me as a Palestinian” (page 20). How does American history in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries contribute to this intimidation?

11. Arabella and Aziz are called by different purposes in life, and they each believe that the other’s mission is more important: “I direct plays. You save lives,” Arabella protests (page 180). Aziz disagrees: “Call us animals? Go ahead. . . . People like you prove we contribute. We make beauty. We make art” (page 180). What does the book have to say about art, humanity, and dignity?

12. When Arabella is trying to steel herself not to feel such strong feelings of anger at her family’s displacement from their home, she tells herself: “There are always winners and losers. Most of us are both. My Manhattan apartment was built on Native American land” (page 95). What other examples of displacement and disenfranchisement does the novel refer to?

13. Naya tells Esther she wishes that her competitive feelings over their children’s test scores had not come between them: “I wouldn’t have wasted so much time missing out on being with the person who makes me feel the most alive” (page 287). Why did Naya care so much about the educational disparities between her son and Esther’s son? How was she able to regain their friendship?

14. Over the course of the novel, three different performers take on the lead role in Hamlet/Hamleta: Cherifa, Arabella, and Ramez. How are each of them suited for the role? How does Shakespeare’s play resonate with the narrative in Too Soon?

15. As Naya and Zoya each confront mortality and their fears for Arabella’s future, they disagree over what she will need most when they’re gone. Naya believes Arabella needs a husband: “Yes, I got married ten years too early. But if Arabella marries, it will be ten years too late. . . . She has been lonely for a long time. . . . I won’t leave her alone in this world” (page 190). Zoya surprises herself by pushing back against the idea that Arabella needs a family: “All my life, I was told there was no fate more tragic than dying childless. But it is a lie. . . . What if just one of the women in my line were allowed to be free?” (page 174). Which of their futures, if any, does Arabella choose? Is being free different from being alone?

Enhance Your Book Club (3-5 Enhance Your Book Club Suggestions)

1. Like Naya’s book club, cook a recipe from the book such as a dish from Zoya’s feast for Aziz: mahshey stuffed squash, skewers of scallops, homemade tabouleh, hummus, and baba ghanoush.

2. Attend a local theatre production and a talkback with the artists.

3. For your next book club, choose a Shakespeare retelling and discuss the choices the author made to adapt the story.

A Conversation with Betty Shamieh

Q: What was your inspiration behind writing Too Soon?

A: Too Soon erupted out of me almost against my will. I began writing this book, a decade ago, when I became a new parent. Did I want the “fun” of illuminating the tangled relationships between Palestinians and Israelis in fiction after my experience of doing it in theatre? Or to tell a fraught tale of Palestinian Americans navigating everything from the Nabka to September 11? Absolutely not. With childcare costs to consider, I was hungry to get a foothold in the world of television. I am personally happiest when indulging my passion for writing comedy and the emergence of streaming entertainment seemed to provide a wealth of opportunity to make people around the world laugh. With my previous off-Broadway premieres of plays about my identity like Roar and The Black Eyed, I became one of the more visible Palestinian American writers in New York. I was also a founding artistic director of The Semitic Root, a collective of Arab and Jewish Americans dedicated to creating art together, an initiative that was not welcome in every theatrical circle. Had I not done my duty to my community by humanizing my people for theatre audiences and taking it on the chin for doing so in the way that any artist who delves into the world of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict necessarily does? Wasn’t it time to enjoy the fun, cultural cache, and cold hard cash that entering the world of writing for tv might bring to me and my growing family?

Apparently not. Instead, I found myself chained to my desk writing this story of the three generations of ambitious Palestinian women, requiring every tool I had as a writer to do it. It took the decades of writing I did before Too Soon to have the tools I needed to tell a tale of this scope with the kind of humor and humanity these uncompromising and sometimes salacious characters demanded I give them.

Q: What was your favorite part about writing this book?

A: The act of reading fiction is essentially strapping yourself into an emotional roller coaster, a thrill that lovers of books find addictive. With this book, I realized that writing a novel was the same kind of rush as I found myself continually surprised by the antics of our three main characters, by the trouble they caused for each other and themselves. It was great fun to create characters who are unapologetically braver and bolder than I am able to be in many aspects of my own life.

Q: How did you come up with the title?

A: In another life, I would have been a stand-up comedian. I have an appreciation for jokes that some (read: most) people might find off-color, especially when I’m not the one dealing with the repercussions of telling them. I love that fraught moment in a routine where a comedian stops their set and slyly asks, “Too soon?” after they’ve pushed cultural boundaries to the point it makes their audience groan. The question acknowledges what is being said is not wrong or even in dispute, but rather a truth no one wants to face at the moment. It’s the timing, not the sentiment, that is considered in bad taste. I wrote this book knowing so much of this world isn’t ready to hear a Palestinian story, that it feels like we are expected to accept it will always be “too soon” for us to have our say.

Q: What is the most interesting research you did for the book?

A: My family descended from the clans that founded Ramallah and lived there for over four centuries. The historical elements of the play, particularly in the era before and during Al-Nakba, are inspired by the stories I absorbed as a child from my extended family that belong to those various clans, who emigrated en masse to America in the 1960s and remain a closeknit community that is still a big part of my life. I did, however, have to research the details of the journeys of refugees, like Zoya and her nine children, who traveled from Jaffa to New York. I interviewed members of our clans who fled via an airport that no longer exists, who spoke of unexpected encounters between the Palestinians who found themselves aboard a ship to America. Additionally, I have always been fascinated by the cosmpolitian glamour of the major cities of the Arab world, like Cairo and Baghdad, in the pre-World War II era, especially the influential Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clans that socialized together and dominated those cultural scenes. By making the character of Yoav a descendent of the famed Cattaoui family, I did extensive research on the role this Egyptian Jewish clan played in various aspects of Egyptian modern history, including diplomacy and drafting the constitution. Through the character of Indji, I was able to immortalize a time when religious coexistence flourished in the Arab world, especially in contrast to Europe as it was embarking on tearing itself apart in two successive world wars and genocide, and how world events intimately and irrevocably impacted the lives of the people of those clans.

Q: How long did you spend writing this book?

A: Ten years. Ten very long years. But I wrote and produced several plays and adapted my dramedy, Roar, into a tv pilot while I was completing Too Soon.

Q: What novels does Too Soon build upon in the literary tradition? Which authors inspired you most?

A: The novel that has influenced me the most is The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist by Emile Habibi. I saw a theatrical adaptation of it that knocked my socks off and its satirical antihero is a model for Arabella in many ways. This iconic work gave me permission to present Palestinian characters as both human and flawed. In terms of fellow American writers, The Color Purple and The Joy Luck Club hit me like thunderbolts when I encountered them, shaping my worldview of what was possible for female writers of color. Had those books not paved a path for me, would I have been able to dream up this tale of three generations of formidable Palestinian American women, determined to wring a reasonable amount of joy out of life in a world designed to render them invisible and silent? Possibly not. I felt freed by the poetic vernacular of Drown, which allowed me to let loose enough to give Arabella’s voice the muscularity of how theatre folks talk among ourselves. Though I love books like God of Small Things and The Corrections, I did not set out to write a family saga and was surprised when Zoya demanded a role as a narrator. Initially, I thought I was writing a breezier book, like the novels I gravitated toward and deeply appreciated about Manhattan life. I set out for Too Soon to have the fun of a deep dive into the world of theatre, like how the A Devil Wears Prada gave us a delicious insider view into the fashion industry, along with a keen look at dating in New York City as a single woman of a certain age (who was prone to dramatics) a la Sex in the City. These kinds of books felt necessary to me and got me through many a long night, making me feel less alone in a world. This book is a melding of several elements that don’t seem to always go together, but somehow must. It reflects my own life as a Palestinian American, who is both extremely privileged and keenly aware of the precariousness of my position in this society and this world.

Q: Libraries and bookstores change the lives of your characters. What do these places mean to you?

A: Libraries and bookstores have always been a haven for me because it is where I’ve always found friends (and not just literary ones). I grew up in Daly City, the foggiest corners of the very foggy San Francisco Bay Area. The public library, which remains a magical place to me with its doorway forever engulfed by mist, was where I first fell in love with stories and decided to become a writer. Soon enough, I found myself leaving that small library behind and working as a playwright in foreign cities. That sounds glamourous until you realize that means you are neither a tourist or a resident of a place, but rather stuck in between. You usually only know the local artists that are part of your show who, unlike you, have somewhere to be when rehearsals end. In other words, you are alone a lot. Whenever I went to a new city to work on a play, the first thing I would do was find the closest bookstore. It felt like a safe way to kill time in a new city, where striking up a conversation (as I was wont to do with strangers) was not as fraught as it is in a bar or restaurant. When I became a mother, I had to postpone or decline theatre opportunities abroad and began haunting the same libraries I had in my youth. It’s there I found a tribe of mothers who sustained me as I entered a new chapter in my life as both a new parent and a novelist. I basically pounced on anyone in a library or bookstore who had a kid in tow, forming a book club of people who were on the same schedule I was. My book club of fabulous parents gave me both solace and support as I wrote this book.

Q: Arabella casts for her show “based on the voices of actors.” If you could cast a movie or play for Too Soon, how would you choose who to play Arabella, Naya, and Zoya?

A: I love this question, because it allows me to dream. I would cast Hiam Abbass as Zoya, Salma Hayek as Naya, and Alia Shawkat as Arabella. I myself would like to make a cameo as the Palestinian American playwright, Lisa-Turned-Layla, who is the character that my friends in the theatre would recognize as most similar to me (particularly when the character wears outfits that straddle the line between fabulous and ridiculous).

Q: Do you have any unwritten ideas about how your characters lead their lives after the story ends?

A: Too Soon ends on a happy day. Arabella has gotten the biggest directing gig of her career, the baby she’s always craved in her arms, and an excuse to call Yoav. I wanted to leave her there, half-knowing she’ll probably encounter artistic differences with several people on her set in London, have a difficult time juggling childcare with work, and find that the issues that kept her from embarking upon a romantic relationship with Yoav remain real. Some things never change and Arabella has an inkling of that, when she realizes she will likely continue to feel “haunted and hunted” as she did at the start of the book.

Q: Do you have a favorite spot that didn’t make it into the book?

A: The West Bank Café is a haven for the New York theatre community. I would have loved to been able to pay homage to it in some way in Too Soon, which starts out as an ode to the American theatre community that Arabella both loves and has to leave in order to grow artistically.

Q: If you don’t mind sharing, what are you working on next?

A: I tend to work on different projects in various genres at the same time. In terms of fiction, I’m at work on a murder mystery that will prove to be especially challenging to solve, because so many people want this particular person dead. Also, I really enjoyed writing Malvolio, a sequel to Twelfth Night, which is essentially Shakespearean fan fiction. I am currently the playwright-in-residence at the Classical Theater of Harlem and I’m in the early stages of developing a prequel to Othello for their company.