Arab Boy Delivered: A Novel

by Paul Aziz Zarou

Overview

Michael Haddad, the teenage son of Palestinian immigrants, comes of age during the tumultuous sixties in his family’s neighborhood grocery store in New York City.

In 1967 Michael maneuvers through the working-class neighborhood delivering groceries and enters the homes and lives of his customers. He’s confronted by the violence of racist bullies and falls for the radical college coed who teaches him about sex, love, and protest. Michael grieves with the mother whose only son died in the Vietnam War and is embraced by the first black couple who move into the neighborhood. They all shape him, and through the conflict of hate, acts of kindness, and his sexual awakening, Michael struggles to figure out who this dutiful son of an immigrant family is.

Michael’s life is buffeted by the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr, and the death, two months later, of Bobby Kennedy. His girlfriend opens his eyes to the ongoing struggle to test national ideals against the growing diversity of America. But when Michael experiences a sudden personal tragedy, he must learn to get past his fears, come to terms with his heritage, and set himself free.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614574149
Publisher:	Cune Press
Publication date:	02/21/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	238
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Paul Aziz Zarou:  Palestinian American born and raised in New York; Paul moved to Los Angeles early in his working life. He raised his family in LA and now lives here with his wife. His love of literature, history, and politics is what motivates him to tell stories. As a writer of novels and screenplays, Paul enjoys exploring both the social and political landscapes of the past and the timeless complexities of family dynamics.

Editorial Reviews

ARAB BOY DELIVERED is an intimate story set in the late sixties. As Michael maneuvers through the working-class neighborhood delivering groceries, he enters the homes and lives of his customers. He’s confronted by the violence of racist bullies and falls for the radical college coed who teaches him about sex, love, and protest. Michael grieves with the mother whose only son died in the Vietnam War and is embraced by the first black couple who move into the neighborhood. They all shape him, and through the conflict of hate, acts of kindness, and his sexual awakening, Michael struggles to define his identity.

—Sahar Mustafah, The Beauty of Your Face

Arab Boy Delivered is an involving, well-told, multi-layered tale of Palestinian immigrants deepening their way into American life. They move from safe, Palestinian Brooklyn to a Queens neighborhood with more opportunity. We see Michael Haddad mature from fifteen-year-old working in the family grocery store to manhood as an NYU freshman—toughened against neighborhood prejudice, sweetened by a passionate, highly sexual affair with a slightly older woman. Set in the Vietnam War era, the novel also portrays a working-class neighborhood, kept imprisoned by deep-seated ethnic prejudices. In the end, Michael Haddad does not triumph. Yet he finds an open door: he escapes.

Frederic Hunter, Kivu

This is a sensitively-written and heartfelt book about an Arab family pursuing the American Dream in the late 1960s. It’s an important story, and I learned a great deal from their travails­—both about the complexities of Arab-American identity and about the issues facing all immigrants to this country. In that sense, it’s a very timely novel about a subject that needs this kind of in-depth exploration.

Stephen Fife, The 13th Boy: A Memoir of Education and Abuse

Paul Zarou illuminates a rough and tumble neighborhood in Queens in the late 1960s with precision, clarity, and compassion . . . echoes of Philip Roth.

Steven Schlesser, The Soldier, the Builder & the Diplomat

From the Publisher

Paul Zarou illuminates a rough and tumble neighborhood in Queens in the late 1960s with precision, clarity, and compassion . . . echoes of Philip Roth.

Steven Schlesser

Arab Boy Delivered is an involving, well-told, multi-layered tale of Palestinian immigrants deepening their way into American life. They move from safe, Palestinian Brooklyn to a Queens neighborhood with more opportunity. We see Michael Haddad mature from fifteen-year-old working in the family grocery store to manhood as an NYU freshman—toughened against neighborhood prejudice, sweetened by a passionate, highly sexual affair with a slightly older woman. Set in the Vietnam War era, the novel also portrays a working-class neighborhood, kept imprisoned by deep-seated ethnic prejudices. In the end, Michael Haddad does not triumph. Yet he finds an open door: he escapes.

Frederic Hunter

This is a sensitively-written and heartfelt book about an Arab family pursuing the American Dream in the late 1960s. It’s an important story, and I learned a great deal from their travails­—both about the complexities of Arab-American identity and about the issues facing all immigrants to this country. In that sense, it’s a very timely novel about a subject that needs this kind of in-depth exploration.

Stephen Fife

Zarou’s characters are familiar faces from the old neighborhood: first crushes, overprotective fathers, the bully-gang, mother hens overseeing the block. At the center of a rich tapestry of multi-generational America is Michael Haddad, the son of Palestinian immigrants. His coming of age story, set against the turbulent 1960's, widens to encompass the ordinary lives of people we’ve all known, those who’ve loved and taught us, those who’ve gathered us in their folds, and those who’ve made us suffer. Ultimately, Zarou reminds us of the boundless power of family and friends as we discover who we are.

Sahar Mustafah