“Strange building, strange people. Even for New York, it’s pretty crazy. This sentence could well sum up the new novel by Moroccan writer Meryem Alaoui, who lived in the United States for a few years before writing this second title. In this Brooklyn apartment building, unlikely stories intertwine with gossip that eventually circles all four floors. There is Jolene, the dean who has occupied a ground floor apartment for several decades and watches the comings and goings of all her neighbors. Ethan, known for his very popular parties. The unstable Clara, her unexplained absences and her dog Tramp, who barks endlessly. Or Mrs. Ruiz and her son, who comes back to live with his mother every time his girlfriend leaves him. But there is also Riley and Graham, this open couple, parent of a young boy, who explores how far they can combine love and fantasies, through various polyamorous experiences. Their disjointed interactions paint a mosaic of variegated colors, a sort of New York Yacoubian building reminiscent of the famous novel by the Egyptian Alaa El Aswany. And under the magnifying effect of the eye of the neighbors, the slightest pranks take on the appearance of crisp interludes.
We dive with pleasure into Sweet chaos to soak up this typically New York vitality that Meryem Alaoui portrays with humor and subtlety. It’s funny, written with verve and very entertaining. And behind all this neighborhood gossip, there is above all the story of this couple and these individuals who are looking for each other, a bit like everyone else, in the end. In short, it is a contemporary portrait that emerges through this gallery of earthy characters, in the heart of Brooklyn, that of a microsociety that shines as much by its diversity as by its acceptance of difference. We read it to escape into other lives that are not always simple, but never banal.
The novel Les amants de Casablanca, by Tahar Ben Jelloun (published last May by Gallimard), offers us another portrait of society to read from the perspective of the questions and heartbreaks of a couple. Through the story of Nabile and Lamia, we discover Moroccan society in its failings, its customs, its taboos and its unspoken. It’s about love, lovelessness and betrayal, in one of the country’s most vibrant cities. And as often in the writings of the Franco-Moroccan author, we oscillate between tradition and modernity by letting ourselves be carried away by his great talent as a storyteller.
