Arabian Jazz

"This oracular first novel, which unfurls like gossamer [has] characters of a depth seldom found in a debut." — The New Yorker In Diana Abu-Jaber's "impressive, entertaining" ( Chicago Tribune ) first novel, a small, poor-white community in upstate New York becomes home to the transplanted Jordanian family of Matussem Ramoud: his grown daughters, Jemorah and Melvina; his sister Fatima; and her husband, Zaeed. The widower Matuseem loves American jazz, kitschy lawn ornaments, and, of course, his d