Harvard Square: A Novel
A Jewish Egyptian grad student is suffering through a Boston summer in the 1970s, studying for his comprehensive exams and trying to patch together enough cash for food and cigarettes. One day he wanders into Café Algiers, where he meets Kalaj, a thirtysomething Arab cab driver who mesmerizes the regulars with his spectacular put-downs (especially of ­jumbo-ersatz America) and his way with women. Drawn together by language (French) and nostalgia for their Mediterranean childhoods, the two spend the summer wandering from bar to bar, picking up women and talking a blue streak about everything from sex to green cards. But as the fall semester starts up, the student becomes acutely aware of the tension between the refined world of Harvard and his friendship with the often erratic and crude Kalaj, who is soon faced with the threat of deportation. Although Aciman’s plotting is jumpy, Harvard Square provides an interesting look at the dilemmas of identity, the concept of home, and our enduring need to belong. --Lynn Weber