There is much screaming, shouting, a horrific scene, and the narrative proceeds from that point.īut Rasa’s time back in the U.S. Teta peeps through the keyhole of Rasa’s bedroom and catches him in bed with his lover. The story starts on a gripping note: The morning begins with shame. His father dies of cancer, and Rasa’s hitherto happy world collapses around him, even as he is emerging from the closet. He was raised by his feisty grandmother Teta after his artist mother, deep in the clutches of depression, walked out on them, handing down lifelong feelings of abandonment to her son. He bears the scars with pain and a quiet dignity.
But Guapa is nothing less than a sanctuary and solace to Rasa and his friends who drown gallons of red wine, smoke cigarette after cigarette and talk till the idea of going home becomes bearable. He does some desultory translation work, hangs out with his radical activist friends at an underground bar called Guapa, regarded as a den of iniquity by the truncheon-wielding guardians of society. Haddad’s hero Rasa is back in his unnamed country after doing his undergraduate studies in the U.S., full of hope, enthusiasm and a zeal for reform. This book is an ode to disillusionment - personal, political, national - yet written in prose that soars and tugs at the emotions. If being gay is complicated, being gay in West Asia is even more so.
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