August Book Recommendation: Stranger in the Pen

I always love partnering with Inkberry Books in Niwot, because they always hook me up with the coolest books!

This week, I took a look at Mohamed Asem's Stranger in the Pen, and I thoroughly enjoyed it

This is a nonfiction memoir of Asem, mostly focusing on his experience of being detained at Gatwick Airport in the UK. However, this storyline is intertwined with other anecdotes of his life: including failed attempts at love, tensions and reflections about family, and his international traveling. If you're a fan of very linear storytelling, this might be a touch difficult to follow.

The most emotionally frustrating part of the story was his detainment. Traveling through airports is already annoying, and the possibility of detainment is a somewhat scary, but distant thought to most. Considering that this story takes place in 2016 shortly after the attacks in France, it unfortunately isn't all that surprising that Asem was stopped and questioned. What is surprising is why--in fact, it's so surprising that the "why" is never fully explained and is left as a bit of a mystery.

Asem had an apartment in London, even though he wasn't necessarily a resident and even though his student visa had/was close to expiring, his previous travels around the same time went essentially without a hitch. Like many frequent travelers in and out of the UK, he wasn't expecting to be stopped for long. Then, after not one, but two rounds of interviews, it sounded as though he was essentially ignored and made to stay at the airport overnight, waiting for a third round of interviews.

Asem uses somewhat of a cyclic storytelling organization. While taking readers through his present experience of being in detainment, he brings in other anecdotes as well. This creates a feeling as though while seeing him being detained, readers also get to understand his headspace. Asem paints pictures, dreams really, of interactions with family, and rehashes old interactions with people. I thought this was a really interesting technique, because reflection on the past is such a human thing to do. It only amplified the feeling of his frustration and loneliness.

This writing technique was interesting, because without that understanding of Asem's mental condition in those moments, it would have made reading the literal events of his detainment far less interesting. Since it is very human to reflect on old actions, it made airport detainment seem almost more hopeless and relatable.

The book is divided into three parts, the prologue, the middle, and the epilogue. I enjoyed the prologue, because it threw readers into the story: On one hand it's about a man just coming home from being detained. While on another hand, how can he ever get back to normal life?

But Asem already has things to do and people to see; he barely has time to pull himself together.

The prologue sets the book in motion. Asem goes to meet an aunt and cousin. The cousin was livid upon hearing about his ordeal and insisted that he write his story so that others see that detainment happens more often than one might expect.

The middle part, the bulk of the story, is about Asem's detainment. He describes in great detail how he was coming back from Norway and didn't expect much out of the return, and how everything changed. It almost felt like a play-by-play in that readers see the whole experience, with the exception of the final interview. All the missing pieces are pulled together and the reader starts to feel for Asem and his situation.

It reminds the reader about all the arguments around immigration; about those who "do it the right way" versus those who don't. His story isn't exactly that, but it isn't far from it. This was a really powerful story, because of the amount of sympathy it potentially can create.

I'll admit that I didn't care for the epilogue quite as much, because it takes place a long time after Asem's detainment. In it, Asem describes his experience of going back to visit his family in Kuwait, collecting some personal items and taking care of paperwork; he has both a Kuwaiti and a US passport. While there, he gets pulled into a card game that, while it gives some further context to his overall experience/situation/life, seemed a little superfluous.

At the same time, these reflections did round out Asem as a "character" and gave a sense of closure to his story.

Overall, I would recommend this book. It was a riveting, emotional read that definitely held my interest. I wanted to find out if he'd ever get his third interview and how it would go. It was also a great read, because even though we hear about detainments, this is such a personal story that it evokes a sense of sympathy for people in those situations.

The pacing was great, the detail was well done, and the overall story was just really well communicated. On top of that, it's a short but engaging read, I really can't think of any reason why you wouldn't like it.

Happy Reading!