I have tried to like Hilary Mantel's novels, honestly, I've tried, but she makes it so hard. "Eight Months in Ghazzah Street" is the third Mantel I've read and I just don't understand the hyper-ecstatic raves for her books. I have not enjoyed any that I've read so far (I read Beyond Black and The Giant, O'Brien prior to this one). I find her novels oddly constructed and curiously unengaging.

"Eight Months" could have been a great novel. Could have been. The plot set-up was very promising, with oodles of potential that was never realised. It's 1985 and clueless, young, English expat couple, Andrew and Frances Shore have just arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after accepting a job offer. Instead of being housed in an expat compound, the Shores are housed at a small, claustrophobic block of four apartments. Their neighbours are two Muslim couples and a mysterious, unoccupied apartment directly above them. But is it unoccupied? Mantel attempts to create dramatic tension by building a sense of foreboding about the apartment. Frances swears she hears footsteps, sobs and other strange noises coming from the apartment. There are rumours that the apartment is an illicit love-nest for a minor Saudi Prince. But could it be a torture chamber? Frances's paranoia about the apartment is fed by her female Muslim neighbours with whom she has strange coffee-and-conversation sessions. Their views on life are so diametrically opposed to Frances's, and she never comes to grips with their typically Islamic approach to life.

My main problem with this novel is that it is filled to the brim with two-dimensional, unsympathetic characters. Andrew and Frances, the main characters, are particularly unlikeable and difficult to relate to. The other expat characters are cardboard cut-outs. The Muslim neighbours were by far the most interesting characters. The final chapters of the book dealing with an expat death and the mysterious empty apartment are poorly resolved. We never find out exactly what transpired in the apartment, nor do we find out what really happened to the Shore's neighbours. I was most unsatisfied with the ending.

To be honest, I do not recommend this novel. It was a hard slog through a sea of unpleasant characters. The Saudi setting is very intriguing b ut does not make up for a plot that runs out of steam. I thought the storyline would be a lot more engaging than what it was and I feel that the novel's potential was squandered due to poor characterisation and insufficient resolution of the supposed "mystery" of the unoccupied apartment.

This book isn't about Saudi Arabia; it's about the psychological impact of living in an informational vacuum. Jeddah is a place to experience extraordinary cultural diversity, to delve deeply into Islam, to immerse oneself in history and architecture, to have mindless fun, or to withdraw into the shadows as Frances Shore did in Mantel's novel. But however you as a Western expatriate "see" the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you can be certain that your view is highly superficial, that all of the important decisions that affect your life in The Kingdom are made by people behind closed doors, speaking Arabic, thinking of you as a non-Moslem non-person. You may be useful to them for 1 year or 18, but ultimately you - and all of the other expats who work there from around the world - are expendable. You have no right to know anything, no right to appeal decisions with which you disagree, severely limited freedom of movement within the country, no right to leave the country until the faceless organization that took your passport the moment you arrived chooses to return it to you. You have no control over your own life except in the most superficial sense. Some people cope with these constraints better than others; Frances Shore is one of many who can't cope with them at all, and becomes increasingly terrified and paranoid as she realizes the depth of her ignorance and powerlessness. Those who read the novel in search of a clear resolution to the mystery simply miss the point. Clear resolution presupposes access to information, and power to use it. Western expats in Saudi Arabia have neither.

If you like extremely ambiguous thrillers with an open ending that seems to indicate (only if you go back to the first page) that the heroine and her husband get offed in the end, this is fine.



However, if you're looking for information on the "real" Saudi Arabia, it's far from fine.



The claim is that Hilary Mantel lived in Saudi Arabia, but she doesn't write as if she did. I lived there for six years, and her version of expat life is nothing like what I experienced. To begin with, Jeddah is the most Westernized city in Saudi, a really happening place with lots and lots of foreigners, who enjoy life hugely and manage to skate around the restrictions without letting them get in the way. NO ONE I knew just sat in their apartment and moped! There were parties, concerts, art shows, plays, classes, picnics, camping in the desert, and fishing and swimming outings.



No legal alcohol? Home brew. Women can't drive? Tons of taxis, plus a modern bus service.

Shopping? Most of the shop assistants are from Ceylon, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Bangladesh, Phillipines, Taiwan, etc., etc. The idea that they "don't see a woman as a person" is ludicrous! Also, even Saudi men, who traditionally avert their eyes from unrelated women out of politeness, have mostly learned that Western women can and do have minds and opinions, and can be conversed with.



I had a good laugh when someone on the airplane says "Cartographers are redundant. They don't have maps." She wrote that in 1988. However, when my husband and I left in 1985, there WERE maps. We used them to drive around the country.



There are people from all over the world living in the Kingdom, in addition to Americans. Getting to know people from so many countries and cultures was an adventure by itself. My best friends while I was there were Lebanese, Mexican, Canadian and British. My husband and I were invited to visit Saudis, who were invariably as friendly and curious to know about us and our lives as we were about them. Language, by the way, is rarely a problem, as English is used as a sort of lingua franca.



In my opinion, Mantel wanted to write a thriller about a woman in a place where she couldn't depend on anything she used to know, and she chose Saudi Arabia, then cherry-picked the negative elements and exaggerated them.



If you want a more authentic view on Saudi, try "At the Drop of a Veil" by Marianne Alireza. She was probably the first American to marry a Saudi, and while she doesn't avoid the difficulties or the negative things, she also gives a wonderful view of the fascinating culture of the country, and the warmth of the Saudi family she married into.

If you like extremely ambiguous thrillers with an open ending that seems to indicate (only if you go back to the first page) that the heroine and her husband get offed in the end, this is fine.

However, if you're looking for information on the "real" Saudi Arabia, it's far from fine.

The claim is that Hilary Mantel lived in Saudi Arabia, but she doesn't write as if she did. I lived there for six years, and her version of expat life is nothing like what I experienced. To begin with, Jeddah is the most Westernized city in Saudi, a really happening place with lots and lots of foreigners, who enjoy life hugely and manage to skate around the restrictions without letting them get in the way. NO ONE I knew just sat in their apartment and moped! There were parties, concerts, art shows, plays, classes, picnics, camping in the desert, and fishing and swimming outings.

No legal alcohol? Home brew. Women can't drive? Tons of taxis, plus a modern bus service.
Shopping? Most of the shop assistants are from Ceylon, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Bangladesh, Phillipines, Taiwan, etc., etc. The idea that they "don't see a woman as a person" is ludicrous! Also, even Saudi men, who traditionally avert their eyes from unrelated women out of politeness, have mostly learned that Western women can and do have minds and opinions, and can be conversed with.

I had a good laugh when someone on the airplane says "Cartographers are redundant. They don't have maps." She wrote that in 1988. However, when my husband and I left in 1985, there WERE maps. We used them to drive around the country.

There are people from all over the world living in the Kingdom, in addition to Americans. Getting to know people from so many countries and cultures was an adventure by itself. My best friends while I was there were Lebanese, Mexican, Canadian and British. My husband and I were invited to visit Saudis, who were invariably as friendly and curious to know about us and our lives as we were about them. Language, by the way, is rarely a problem, as English is used as a sort of lingua franca.

In my opinion, Mantel wanted to write a thriller about a woman in a place where she couldn't depend on anything she used to know, and she chose Saudi Arabia, then cherry-picked the negative elements and exaggerated them.

If you want a more authentic view on Saudi, try "At the Drop of a Veil" by Marianne Alireza. She was probably the first American to marry a Saudi, and while she doesn't avoid the difficulties or the negative things, she also gives a wonderful view of the fascinating culture of the country, and the warmth of the Saudi family she married into.

If you like extremely ambiguous thrillers with an open ending that seems to indicate (only if you go back to the first page) that the heroine and her husband get offed in the end, this is fine.

However, if you're looking for information on the "real" Saudi Arabia, it's far from fine.

The claim is that Hilary Mantel lived in Saudi Arabia, but she doesn't write as if she did. I lived there for six years, and her version of expat life is nothing like what I experienced. To begin with, Jeddah is the most Westernized city in Saudi, a really happening place with lots and lots of foreigners, who enjoy life hugely and manage to skate around the restrictions without letting them get in the way. NO ONE I knew just sat in their apartment and moped! There were parties, concerts, art shows, plays, classes, picnics, camping in the desert, and fishing and swimming outings.

No legal alcohol? Home brew. Women can't drive? Tons of taxis, plus a modern bus service.
Shopping? Most of the shop assistants are from Ceylon, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Bangladesh, Phillipines, Taiwan, etc., etc. The idea that they "don't see a woman as a person" is ludicrous! Also, even Saudi men, who traditionally avert their eyes from unrelated women out of politeness, have mostly learned that Western women can and do have minds and opinions, and can be conversed with.

I had a good laugh when someone on the airplane says "Cartographers are redundant. They don't have maps." She wrote that in 1988. However, when my husband and I left in 1985, there WERE maps. We used them to drive around the country.

There are people from all over the world living in the Kingdom, in addition to Americans. Getting to know people from so many countries and cultures was an adventure by itself. My best friends while I was there were Lebanese, Mexican, Canadian and British. My husband and I were invited to visit Saudis, who were invariably as friendly and curious to know about us and our lives as we were about them. Language, by the way, is rarely a problem, as English is used as a sort of lingua franca.

In my opinion, Mantel wanted to write a thriller about a woman in a place where she couldn't depend on anything she used to know, and she chose Saudi Arabia, then cherry-picked the negative elements and exaggerated them.

If you want a more authentic view on Saudi, try "At the Drop of a Veil" by Marianne Alireza. She was probably the first American to marry a Saudi, and while she doesn't avoid the difficulties or the negative things, she also gives a wonderful view of the fascinating culture of the country, and the warmth of the Saudi family she married into.

Mantel's book brings to mind the films "Blow-Up" and "The Conversation," in which evidence of some kind of malfeasance is discovered by an otherwise innocent observer, then takes on a life of its own, while the observer is swept up in a growing tide of paranoia. The narrator in this chilling novel is a woman whose husband has taken a job in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, in the 1980s. Husband and wife are immediately submerged in a culture far different from any they've known, where appearance and reality are seldom clear and fear and rumor dominate their lives.

Trapped in the claustrophobic flat provided by her husband's employer, the narrator comes to suspect that the empty flat above her is not empty at all. Looking for clues to the real nature of its use, she comes to know the wives of two other men who live in the building, who try to dismiss her concerns while reassuring her that the restrictive role of women in this Muslim country is quite reasonable, and repeating to her firmly held beliefs about the West that are wild exaggerations and outright myths. As suspicion points in every direction, the reader begins to doubt the veracity of everyone, including the other western expatriates who make up the central character's social circle.

Finally, the novel is a discourse on the impossibility of discovering the truth, especially when covering it up or ignoring it serves the interests of enough people. Meanwhile, it finds much to say about gender politics, whether under the dictates of Islam or the double standards still to be found in the democratic West. This is a page-turner that is also sharply written. Its characters are vividly created and the dialogue among them is often withering. Not likely to be embraced by Saudi readers, it portrays the Kingdom in ways that are far from flattering. Readers of this book may also be interested in Peter Theroux' memoir, "Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia."

I picked up this book, the cover photo on the one I read was very similar to the one of Sally Field on "Not Without My Daughter". About a third of the way through the book I suddenly realized it was a novel -however, it is still a good read.

Frances is a British woman of the world, she has travelled well, lived in Africa for over five years and worked as a cartographer (maps). Her husband is a civil engineer and when work is drying up, he is offered a job in Saudi Arabia.

Frances can't work and needs to follow the laws of Islam, down to dressing modestly, and quickly becomes incredibly bored. Meanwhile, in between reading her crime novels she is sure she can hear sobbing coming from the empty apartment upstairs...

I thought the book was interesting, but would have enjoyed it more is the woman of the book didn't immediatly retreat into herself and become so much like the women she wanted to not be like. A complete drip, who occasionally came out of her shell to act modern and feisty with her questions. Just a bit predictable -having said that the ending was a shocker and I read every page to the end. Well written and interesting.