The Book of Trouble: A Romance, by Ann Marlowe

BUST
Feb/Mar 2005

Marlowe's second memoir is a double love letter to the Afghani man who stole her heart, and the Middle Eastern world that stirred her soul. A forty-four-year-old writer and legal headhunter, Marlowe falls head-over-heels for Amir, a Princeton-educated Muslim engineer ten years her junior. To some, Amir may sound like a self-absorbed alcoholic who can't handle being loved by a woman more sophisticated than he. But Marlowe, long besotted by the Third World, is intrigued by his Afghan heritage and excited by his complicated, often contradictory, views of love and relationships. Plus, the sex is incredible.

The two meet at a party in New York, but their romance doesn't ignite until months later, when Marlowe returns from her second trip to Amir's home country. In the three weeks she spends living with an extended Afghani family and teaching English, she grapples with her feelings about family and identity (despite being Jewish, she says, "I felt at home in Mazar more than I ever had in my parents' suburban New Jersey house"). Amir is not as eager to blend their two worlds. While Marlowe learns and grows from their differences, Amir is rattled by them, and the relationship fizzles.

A sharp cultural critic, Marlowe's riffs on Middle Eastern culture, especially on family hierarchies, are fascinating, and I wish there were more of them. But not even an eye-opening trip to American-occupied Iraq can distract her from Amir. As Marlowe acknowledges, it's impossible to intellectualize love. Still, it's frustrating that she spends so many pages trying.