Diana Abu-Jaber: Origin

BY JULIETTE ROSSANT Murder! Jungle! Food television -- ? What has author Diana Abu-Jaber cooked up for us in the wake of her last novel, The Language of Baklava? In Syracuse, NY, where arctic-like winters never seem to end, Lena hides in a crime lab. She has chosen to become a fingerprint examiner to avoid meeting victims, and the police gladly keep their best detective under wraps. Then, a series of SIDS crib deaths leads to a nagging suspicion across the city. Is there a serial murderer of babies out lurking in the cold, concrete jungle? Quietly, the police bring their secret weapon over to the crime scene... Within a few pages, we discover our Lena has a dark secret of her own, a suspicion about her own identity that ran as an undercurrent throughout a childhood with foster parents. Occasionally, it would surface -- like the time she was watching an old Tarzan movie and her foster mother asked which of two women on screen look like her real mother: [Her foster mother] leaned forward and said, "Do you think she looks like your mommy, Lena? But which one?... "No, no, there!" I cried and put my finger right on the TV. "There. Mama!"... I leaned against the television, crying, "Mama, Mama," forehead touching the glass images. My hand pressed to the image of the ape. This ape mother still visits her in rain-forest dreams... Back in the present, television helps her cope: I develop a fondness for the television. Not the evening shows or the shows about cops, crime syndicates, or forensic superheroes. I like the cooking shows -- the placid, measured combinations -- adding one ingredient to another, the stirring and stirring -- that don't remind me of anything and don't make me feel anything. What does it all mean? How does it all fit together? Find out in the new crime thriller, Origin (W. W. Norton 2007). Delve deep, deep into this vivid thriller and taste Diana Abu-Jaber's generous helpings of our innermost worlds. This book reeks of "the sultry beauty and perfumes of the earth." If you have time for only one book this summer, make it Origin. Radio: NPR - listen to Diana Abu-Jaber talk about influences Related articles: Saudi Aramco World (see bio of Newsweek editor Lorraine Ali) Other reviews: Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, Syracuse Post-Standard, Tacoma News-Tribune, Sun-Sentinel, Eugene Weekly, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Seattle Times, Salem Statesman-Journal Previous articles: The Sensual Language of Baklava [Cookbook Reviews - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, Diana Abu-Jaber --> back to Super Chef