GLR July-August 2023

they carry, unspoken until Hussam un burdens himself to a sympathetic Syr ian-Canadian named Dawood, an immigrant advocate and weekend drag queen. Wassim is finally able to tell Khalila the truth about what hap pened—what keeps him hungry, cold, and in hiding. Both men also happen to be cre ative, resourceful, and intelligent. Al though those qualities don’t save them from their torments, they do help them to endure from day to day. Hussam has a particularly good sense of humor and the disarming ability to accurately imag ine how sex will play out with the men who flirt with him. As an immigrant, he learns what it means to be a minority within a minority for the first time, to experience the misperceptions people have about him based on his appear ance, name, or national origin. Upon re gaining consciousness in a hospital bed,

in subtle and not-so-subtle details about the cultural fusion between these point edly disparate societies. Years after their separation, Wassim—in a rare mo ment of relief following his first en counter with the compassionate shopkeeper—wanders Damascus in the middle of the night, whistling to him self a tune Hussam used to sing, the lyrics of which he can’t quite remem ber—something about “finding a place for us, somewhere peaceful and quiet with open air.” Ramadan deftly captures what it means to be a homosexual in a deeply religious culture racked with political violence, where nearly every aspect of life is dictated by tradition and the Koran, which in turn is driven by the patriarchal and the masculine. The au thor also shines light on a gay man’s im migrant experience and the freedoms he doesn’t yet know how to navigate. Even

Danny Ramadan. Cover photo, The Foghorn Echoes.

without knowing how or why he got there, Hussam opens his eyes to see an eraser board across from his bed on which he has been identified as a white male. He immediately begins shout ing: “I’m not white!” One of the delights of this novel is how Ramadan weaves

with all that, it is the crippling wounds of shame and guilt that most dominate Hussam and Wassim’s lives, keeping them apart. Do they eventually reconnect? Fortunately, Ramadan crafts a satisfying conclusion without sugarcoating the adversity these men will continue to face.

July–August 2023

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