Behind its flashy premise full of swords and falconry, Fencing with the King enacts the deft footwork of a veteran novelist reinvigorating a timeless story of rivalry over inheritance with a dash of personal history ... To write fiction about the Palestinian diaspora involves finding ways to acknowledge the fragmentation of exile — usually in the novel’s form, its situation or its characters’ lives. In this case, that fragmentation is embodied by Hafez ... The reader hopes to see Amani discover and resist her uncle’s more nefarious ideas head-on, and the lack of this fuller reckoning is a palpable absence ... I have long admired Abu-Jaber’s craftsmanship ... Food is omnipresent in this story about a sumptuous month-long birthday celebration. Like an intricate recipe, her paragraphs balance interior and external worlds, elegant diction and workmanlike narrative. The effect is a texture of contrasts not unlike the exquisite food at the sheikh’s picnic ... The writing is propulsive — but silkily so, wending on limber paragraphs that allow Abu-Jaber to move with ease across a wide-ranging story that probes conflicted identities ... As Abu-Jaber leans further than ever into her Palestinian American roots to craft this subtle story with the resonance of folklore, she illuminates what has been outstanding about her craft all along.
Abu-Jaber, whose family’s story is reflected here, writes with a poet’s attention to language, and the novel beautifully evokes Jordan, from its modern cities and society parties to its ancient desert sites and Bedouin goatherds, all existing together under the whims of an autocratic kingdom and at a time (the mid-1990s) when peace in the Middle East seemed almost within reach. Fencing With the King is a complicated, character-driven and slow-burning mystery with a satisfying yet open-ended finale.
Abu-Jaber spins a mesmerizing tale of displacement, not just in Gabe’s move to the U.S. but in Natalia’s wrenching transplantation to Jordan. Even if at times the narrative stumbles under the weight of its storytelling ambitions, this is a haunting look at the pull the past exerts on us. As Gabe finds out, 'the longer you’re away, the bigger and more elusive the past becomes; a beautiful monster.' Descriptions of the shifting desert landscapes are icing on the cake.
[A] nicely layered story ... Romance takes up a good chunk of the final act, but it’s less gripping than the plot involving Hafez. Still, Abu-Jaber ably captures the tenuous role of Jordan in the mid-1990s Middle East peace process while unearthing a family’s buried secrets. It adds up to an engrossing family drama.
A somewhat contrived romantic melodrama ... Jordan’s poor are meagerly represented by stereotypically devoted servants and noble traditional Bedouin ...A slightly overwrought family drama set against a fascinating backdrop of late-20th-century Middle Eastern politics.
