Evil Eye: A Novel

“I wanted to say that often, when influential artists are discussed, it’s always the usual suspects: Van Gogh, Monet, and so on. While we’ll study some familiar paintings this semester, I’m also going to show you paintings by artists of color, artists I suspect you’ve never heard of, but who’ve made an indelible mark on the world.”

Yara opens her class with a statement about inclusivity in her teaching, even though she was reprimanded in the past for failing to teach the canon. As an Arab American woman, Yara both experiences and witnesses countless small acts of racist prejudice, and exposing students to the beauty of diversity is one way that she seeks to counter them.

“It was Teta who shared the stories of Palestine with Yara. The flaming olive fields outside the home they were forced to leave behind, the harsh winters in the refugee camp, the glistening golden dome of the Aqsa mosque they could no longer visit freely or at all.”

This passage grounds the novel within the history of the Palestinian diaspora in the US. Yara’s family, like so many, were displaced by various waves of Israeli occupation and violence in Palestine and were forced to leave their homes and their country.

“Why didn’t the world realize that identity and privilege were accidents of birth?”

Yara’s question reflects her sense of the contingency of her own and other people’s identities. She is aware that her white, female colleagues consider themselves to be above racism but that they nonetheless stereotype her and believe, without really questioning why, in the supremacy of white, Western culture.

“We’re the only people in the world who aren’t allowed to enter our own country.”

This passage alludes to the continuing statelessness of the Palestinian people more than 70 years after the Nakba. Members of Palestinian diaspora, even those who, like Yara, hold passports from other countries, suffer as a result of having been forcibly driven from their homeland. The way that they are treated by Israeli border control is one example of that suffering.

“It’s not my fault we live in a world of double standards. It’s not my fault, it’s everywhere.”

Fadi speaks these lines to Yara in response to her unhappiness at his refusal to let her chaperone her school’s cruise. Yara, although their marriage is more modern than many in her community, chafes against the strictures of a relationship in which she has less power than her husband. This yearning to be “free” as she terms it is one of her primary points of characterization. She is not entirely sure that Western culture is free of these double standards, but she is unhappy with the way that they play out in Arab culture.

“‘Instead of making him feel guilty about his schedule,’ Baba went on, ‘why don’t you try to be a source of comfort for him? Have a nice meal ready when he comes home, maybe put on something nice. Men are visual creatures. It doesn’t take much to make them happy.’”

Although her marriage is more modern than many within her Arab community, Yara is still expected to perform a number of gendered duties. Her father’s advice seems old-fashioned at best and, at worst, fails to take into account the enormous effort that Yara already puts into her marriage and family while getting very little “comfort” in return.

“‘My teta meant a lot to me, I’m sorry. I was fourteen when we lost her. She lived in Palestine. We didn’t—’ Yara caught herself. ‘We couldn’t go back for the funeral. I think I cook her food as often as I do to keep her memory with me.’”

As Yara becomes closer to Silas, she shares with him the roots of her interest in Arab cooking, tracing it back to her grandmother. Because her family was unable to attend the funeral, Yara maintains her closeness to Teta through repeating her recipes.

“Hadn’t she felt this way her whole life, too? She’d never been sure of who she was. She’d never belonged anywhere, not in Brooklyn, not in Palestine, and certainly not here.”“Hadn’t she felt this way her whole life, too? She’d never been sure of who she was. She’d never belonged anywhere, not in Brooklyn, not in Palestine, and certainly not here.”

This passage speaks to the theme of Navigating Cultural Displacement. Yara grows up caught between two cultures. She is both American and Palestinian. She feels in some ways too American for her Palestinian family because she wants an education and a job outside of the home. Yet because of her Palestinian upbringing, she finds many aspects of American culture distasteful.

“My parents were immigrants and, well, they were very protective of us. I had a sheltered upbringing.”

Yara sees her past as typical of many immigrant families, where the line between protection and oppression was not always clear. She is reluctant to criticize her parents for curtailing her freedom so much—especially in relation to her brothers—but she also knows that being so “sheltered” left her vulnerable when she began to navigate the broader world. The issue of “protection” reemerges in Yara’s final journal entry.

“After the Israeli planes bombed the olive trees, the soldiers gave us thirty minutes to leave our home. I remember watching my mother turn off the stove before leaving the house. My father locked the door and clutched the house key, as if certain we would return soon.”

Teta’s recollection of her family’s expulsion from their home remains vivid even after many decades and many retellings. The details about making sure to turn off the stove and locking the door behind them suggest that Teta’s parents had not yet grasped the finality of their dispossession—what was happening to them was literally unthinkable.

“‘That was really brave of you.’ She eventually said. ‘Coming out to your parents. I wish I was that brave.’ ‘But you are, we all are. Sometimes the fear just takes over and we lose sight of what matters most.’”

Silas and Yara find common ground in the ways they relate to their families and communities. They both struggle with fear and doubt as they navigate their identities.

“But through her writing, she was beginning to feel a new agency. She’d spent her life running from her memories, and now she was running toward them. It was painful, yes but she had more control now.”

Although Yara is skeptical of her ability to convey her feelings in words when she begins journaling, the more she does it, the more she realizes the power of putting words down on the page. Just as Teta gained some relief by telling the story of the Nakba over and over, Yara finds that writing down her memories lessens their power over her.

“I’ve been cursed most of my life, ever since I left Palestine.”

Yara’s mother took a fatalistic view of her own life, believing that she lived under a curse too powerful to be dissipated. She wished that she could return to Palestine, but with a husband and six children in America, she was “stuck.” While Yara will eventually be able to see the “curse” in terms of generational trauma that can be processed and potentially overcome, the tragedy of her mother’s life is that she convinced herself that she lacked agency.

“Yara painted. She wrote. She sorted through her memories as if she’d been seeing them all wrong, looking through a distorted lens, as if she’d been an unreliable narrator of her life.”

Yara questions her own perceptions of the past without being able to see them from an objective point of view. She knows that she has misunderstood certain things, but she also is made to feel unreliable by people in her life—most notably, Fadi—who minimize her feelings and perceptions.

“With a few taps of her thumb, she uploaded the picture to Instagram, biting the inside of her cheek as she typed the caption: Happy ten years to my number one. I’m so grateful for you. I love you so much.”

As with all of her Instagram photos, Yara’s wedding anniversary post is not fully representative of her reality. As she scrolls through 10 years’ worth of pictures taken with Fadi, she notices unhappiness in her eyes in many of the shots and remembers how difficult particular days had been. Yara works hard to preserve the image of a happy marriage, but the truth is that she has always felt like something is missing in their relationship.

“‘I thought I was doing something nice,’ he said, ‘Buying you that bracelet and planning this dinner, but no matter what I do, you’re never happy.’”

Yara and Fadi’s anniversary dinner turns hostile when Yara cannot hide her disappointment over receiving a bracelet from her husband, rather than the trip she was hoping for. For Fadi, Yara’s desire to travel is just selfishness, but for Yara, it represents the freedom she feels has always been lacking from her life.

“As she painted she pondered what her life would be like if she stayed on this path with Fadi. She was certain now, in a way she’d never been before, that she couldn’t become the person she wanted to be if she remained with him.”

This passage represents a turning point for Yara. Although she’s spent many years in denial, the process of journaling has allowed her to understand herself and her family better. She can no longer lie to herself and finally realizes that she needs to make a change.

“Her mother was the one who ruined everything? The room fell into complete darkness. She held the phone to her ear, listening to the shallow rise and fall of her chest until she managed to say ‘What about all of the times you beat her?’”

Much of Yara’s life has been spent hiding from the truth of her family’s abuse and burying memories of its trauma and disfunction. That she is finally ready to confront her father shows how far she has come on her own trajectory of healing. Ultimately, she confronts all of her fears and sources of trauma and emerges as the self-actualized and “free” woman she’s always wanted to be.

“I feel like you love me because you’re supposed to, because I’m your wife and the mother of your kids, not because of who I am on the inside.”

This passage speaks to the nature of Yara and Fadi’s relationship as well as to the emotional damage that can be caused by strict gender roles. Fadi sees Yara not as a complex, multi-faceted individual but as a cookie-cutter “wife” and “mother.” Beyond caring that she performs her household duties well, Fadi does not seem to have much interest in Yara as a human.

“First I lost my job, now my marriage is on the verge of collapse. It’s hard not to believe that I deserve all this.”

Because Yara did not understand the source of her mother’s abuse, anger, and volatility, she came to believe that it had all been her fault. She easily transfers this self-blame to other relationships and thinks that she is to blame for everything bad that happens to her.

“I didn’t really see a lot of love growing up. My dad used to hit my mom and, well, she did a lot of things as a reaction to that.”

Yara continues excavating her past in conversation with Silas. She realizes now that what her mother experienced as her own unworthiness and cursedness was actually a symptom of pain and abuse. Now that Yara is no longer suppressing and denying these memories, she can begin to move past them.

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

This saying, which Yara reads in Esther’s office, strikes a chord with her. Esther believes that humans are more than the sum of their parts and that there is an inner core of truth present in everyone. That Yara finds this idea so compelling demonstrates how far she has come on her own journey of self-discovery: She has recently realized that she wants more out of life than her marriage provides, and she is ready to take steps to make changes.

“Unfortunately it’s very common for unhealed trauma to be passed down in families, and it can be particularly strong in ethnic minorities, who often deal with more stigma and discrimination, and can receive compromised care.”

Esther’s explanation of ancestral trauma gives Yara the necessary language to identify what has been left unspoken in her and her family’s history. Realizing that the problem is not her “brokenness” but rather the result of real events and choices made by others paradoxically frees her to deal with her pain.