The Refugee Ocean

by Pauls Toutonghi

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

With two plots that jump around time and place, and characters that are immediate and real, The Refugee Ocean is as masterfully told as it is emotionally satisfying. It grapples with complex topics that will leave the reader deep in thought, contemplating long after that final page.

Two refugees find that their lives are inextricably linked—over time and distance—by the perils of history and a single haunting piece of music.

Born in Beirut in 1922, Marguerite Toutoungi lives a life of loss and sacrifice. She dreams of traveling to Europe and studying music at the Conservatoire de Paris but her family—and her society—hold her back. When she meets the son of a Cuban tobacco farmer at a formal dance, love transforms her life. Together with him, she flees across the Pacific Ocean. She’s hoping for a new beginning. Instead, she finds revolution and chaos.

Over fifty years later, Naïm Rahil is a teenage refugee from Aleppo, Syria. A former piano prodigy who struggles to thrive in America—and who has lost part of his hand in the war—he dreams of a simple, normal life.

Moving from Aleppo on the brink of civil war, to Lebanon in the late 1940s, to Havana during the Cuban Revolution, to the suburbs of Washington, DC, The Refugee Ocean grapples with what it means to be an immigrant, shows how wounds can heal, and highlights the role of music and art in the resilience of the human spirit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781668007433
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/03/2023
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	37,452
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Pauls Toutonghi’s parents were both refugees to the United States. He has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, an Andrew W. Mellon research fellowship, a Fulbright Grant, and a residency at Hawthornden Castle. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Outside Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Granta, Tin House, and other periodicals. He’s married to the novelist, Peyton Marshall. He lives in Oregon, where he teaches at Lewis and Clark College.

Editorial Reviews

"Both thoughtful and seamlessly executed; a fine choice for book clubs."—Library Journal

"Toutonghi’s evocative prose captures the power of music and the ongoing struggles of grief."—Booklist

"Gloriously symphonic."—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

"The Refugee Ocean is one of those breathtaking and simultaneously heartbreaking stories that slides under one's skin and stays... It is a story of the power of music and its ability to bring lives and hope together and to heal wounds that threaten the soul."—The Montecito Journal

"There is a tender fearlessness that runs through The Refugee Ocean, a book as unflinching in its depiction of conflict as it is anchored to the healing power of art. Pauls Toutonghi has written such a richly imagined and emotionally complex story set where the grand sweep of history collides with the innate human desire for shelter, connection and beauty. The result is an unforgettable novel about the way the lives of the displaced can echo through decades and across oceans, the way we are, even or perhaps especially when unanchored from the places of our birth, bound to one another."—Omar El Akkad, national bestselling author of American War and What Strange Paradise

"The Refugee Ocean is an exquisite novel, as poignant and layered as the beautiful music at the story's heart. Pauls Toutonghi masterfully captures moments of humanity, connection, and joy even as the novel confronts all the hardships of war and displacement."—Eleanor Shearer, author of River Sing Me Home

"Two musicians. Two countries. Two conflicts. Two time periods. Pauls Toutonghi’s breathtaking new novel, The Refugee Ocean, presents two narratives that are equally engrossing yet so far removed from one another that one of the book’s central questions becomes how exactly Toutonghi will ever manage to weave the two storylines together. When he eventually does, it is more like he has brought together a pair of crash cymbals. The sound is so loud and so clear and so powerful it reverberates in your ears long after you’ve turned the last page."—Rachel Beanland, author of The House Is on Fire

"From its opening paragraph to its shattering last line, The Refugee Ocean had me in a thrall. Deeply humane, and written in elegant, understated prose, this is a novel with old-fashioned sweep and texture, yet it always feels burningly relevant. Pauls Toutonghi, take a bow."—Tom Bissell, author of Creative Types: and Other Stories

"In this timely and beautifully written book, Pauls Toutonghi offers a riveting portrayal of the refugee experience and a testimony to the enduring nature of art. I was swept up in the lives of these characters and deeply touched by their stories. This novel is itself a lovely and humane work of art."—Alix Ohlin, author of We Want What We Want

"Like the artful music at the center of its overlapping plotlines, The Refugee Ocean is intricate, moving, and vitalizing—a powerful portrait of displaced characters seeking refuge in the unfamiliar and finding the perils and gifts of humanity that will connect them across culture and time."—Vu Tran, author of Dragonfish

"A brilliant insight into war, on every level possible. The novel is a kind of waltz — sailing effortlessly in the ocean of refugees from broken dreams."—Muhammad Aladdin, author of The Season of Migration to Arkidea and The Secret Life of Citizen M

From the Publisher

07/01/2023

A Pushcart Prize—winning, first-generation U.S. author, Toutonghi (Red Weather; Dog Gone) here explores the immigration experience over time. In late 1940s Lebanon, talented young composer Marguerite Toutoungi (based on the author's cousin) is prevented by social stricture and family machinations from studying at the Conservatoire de Paris and instead follows politically like-minded Adolfo Jorge Castillo to Cuba, ultimately facing hard choices during the revolution. Over a half-century later, a bombing costs young Syrian piano prodigy Naïm Rahil both his dreams (one hand is damaged) and his entire family but for his mother, with whom he travels to the United States after spending time in a refugee camp. These two storylines are bridged by Annabel Crandell, whose transformation from canny, fun-seeking spokesmodel to social-justice crusader is an affecting story of its own. Throughout, whether figuratively or literally, Naïm awaits the return of his remaining family and, in a beautiful scene at book's end, senses the convergence of other presences from the past, with music as background. VERDICT Toutonghi places his characters in extreme situations where they face the complexities of right and wrong while showing readers how the past continues to reverberate in the present. Both thoughtful and seamlessly executed; a fine choice for book clubs.—Barbara Hoffert

Library Journal

2023-08-12
Two refugees struggle to build new lives.

As its title suggests, this novel is concerned with refugees. On one side, there’s Naïm Rahil, a 14-year-old piano prodigy from current-day Aleppo whose left hand is mangled by shelling. On the other, there’s Marguerite Toutoungi, born in 1925, the middle daughter of an elite Beirut family that made its fortune from tobacco. While her parents hope to marry her off, Marguerite longs only to study music at the Conservatoire de Paris; both plans are foiled when she falls in love with the son of a Cuban tobacco farmer. Late in the novel, of course, both halves of the story converge. The author’s construction is awkward—haphazard, even—while his dialogue frequently feels overshadowed by Hollywood scripts in a way that seems completely divorced from the way people actually speak. After the event that destroys his hand and most of his family, Naïm wakes up in the hospital. “ 'Where’s Dad?' ” he asks Fatima, his mother. “Fatima’s gaze seemed to harden. She started to speak, then shook her head, cleared her throat, looked away. Her implication was clear. ‘Anyone?’ he asked. She shook her head slightly.” The scene wouldn’t be out of place in an action movie, but that doesn’t seem to have been Toutonghi’s intent. Then, too, he has a habit of using current-day standards to evaluate things that would have preceded those standards—as, for example, when Marguerite considers that “her work had been validated.” It’s the early 20th century, and Marguerite is in Beirut: Would she really use validation language?

A novel that sags under the weight of improbable dialogue, two-dimensional characters, and various anachronisms.

Kirkus Reviews

Three extraordinary narrators guide listeners through two timelines, three lives, and multiple locations involving the immigrant experience. Marguerite, intelligently portrayed by Suehyla El-Attar Young, is musically gifted and composes brilliant sonatas even as civil war rages in Beirut in 1922. Ali Andre Ali is terrific while recounting a story set 50 years later involving Naim, a young Syrian and gifted pianist who is maimed in an Aleppo bombing. Tying the two stories together is wise, witty American Annabel, who is wonderfully portrayed by Jackie Sanders. From Lebanon to Cuba, from Syria to America, the sensitive prose offers painful insights into war and its effects on those displaced. But it's the top-notch performances and music that will resonate with listeners. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2023 - AudioFile