The End of Sleep

by Rowan Somerville

Overview

With Irish wit and passion, Somerville crafts a riotous love letter to Arab culture—its sense of honor and friendship, its food and humor, and above all, its storytelling.

In this exuberant, transformative tale of modern-day Cairo, a drunken Irish journalist named Fin seeks a story. His friend Farouk, mercurial teller of tales, has tantalized him with news of the wily Skinhead Said, who may or may not have discovered a cache of priceless antiquities. But the truth remains elusive—not until they both travel to proverbial hell and back, courtesy of a thuggish kebab-shop tycoon and his brutal retinue. Once Fin finds a way to save his friend's life, and baba ghanoush is properly made, and other necessities of life are observed, then stories may be spun and secrets reluctantly revealed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393346091
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/18/2008
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	1.00(w) x 1.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Rowan Somerville has worked in television, film, and radio, and has also pursued his fortunes in Egypt. He lives in rural Ireland. This is his first novel.

Editorial Reviews

Somerville's atmospheric if rudderless debut spans one action-packed day in the life of a hapless Irish journalist in Cairo, segmented into the five Islamic calls to prayer. Fin wakes up abysmally hungover to the news that he has lost his job for the Cairo Herald after a fight with an American embassy official. In desperation, Fin seeks out his bombastic Egyptian friend, Farouk, who enthralls Fin with a story of a villager named Skinhead Saïd, who suspected a trove of riches was hidden underneath his house, but the basement wall collapsed, destroying his dream. Farouk, then, is kidnapped by a man who believes Farouk was involved in a hit-and-run that left his daughter with a broken leg, and the novel becomes a high-energy chase-and-bribe tour of Cairo as a good-intentioned Fin attempts to rescue Farouk. Throughout, the story of Saïd's treasure tantalizes Fin and provides a segue to the book's manic conclusion. The narrative is fast-paced and colorful, and though the action can strain believability (a sequence in a hospital, for instance, is particularly tough to swallow), Somerville's madcap tour of Cairo's backstreets is worth the price of admission. (July)

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Publishers Weekly

Irish journalist Fin spends his time in Cairo drinking with other ex-pats and seeking the perfect kebab. This debut novel relates his fall and potential redemption as he attempts to wrest the conclusion of the mysterious tale of Skinhead Saïd from his Egyptian coeval, Farouk. In order to do so, the Irishman must survive several perilous taxi rides, a visit to a dubious sheikh, an abduction and beating from a violent kebab-shop proprietor and his monstrous henchman, a dip in the Nile, a risky mission in a local hospital, and Farouk's continual verbal abuse. Incapacitated by a bruised hip, an empty stomach, and a perpetual hangover, Fin teeters on the edge of actual and existential oblivion. Somerville leaves it to readers to speculate whether Fin finally embraces the salvation Farouk offers. Though it exhibits some narrative inconsistencies and a tendency to gloss over complex episodes and characters, this entertaining and affecting story belongs on the shelf next to Camus's Exile and the Kingdom and Dick Wimmer's "Irish Wine" trilogy.
—J.G. Matthews

Library Journal

In this engaging first novel from Ireland resident Somerville, a dissolute Irish journalist based in Cairo makes a last-ditch effort to investigate a story that just might salvage his career. Badly hobbled in a bar brawl and subsequently fired from his job as senior reporter with the English language Cairo Herald (there are no junior reporters), Fin, who over the course of years has failed to patch together a meaningful life, ponders his next move in a squalid apartment. Drunk and desperate, he calls his only friend, Farouk, who responds like a brother, even though Fin a) is an infidel and b) has been out of touch for more than six months. Before the muezzins call the faithful to prayer at first light, Farouk's chauffeur drags Fin out of bed and deposits him in Mena village, the furthest suburb of Cairo at the edge of the Sahara Desert, where Farouk lives in the shadow of the Great Pyramid. As their first cup of mint tea cools, Farouk begins to tell Fin about Skinhead Said, a neighbor who may have found a hidden tomb laden with treasures underneath his home. Fin believes this story may be his ticket back into journalism, but trying to get a straight story out of Farouk is like persuading him that religion is only a superstition. A desperate Irishman can be just as dogged as a proud Egyptian, however. Over the course of 24 hours, in an attempt to get the full story out of Farouk, Fin faces down a U.S. secret-service agent with a Rambo complex, a pint-sized king's sadistic bodyguard and a prized Arabian stallion with a temper. Somerville successfully weaves details about local custom and cuisine into this humorous novel, which will at least leave readers eager to sample some Egyptiandelicacies. East meets West in this witty and warm picaresque. Agent: Natasha Fairweather/AP Watt

Kirkus Reviews