The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)

In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and ‘the neighborhood homosexual,’ Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude.

Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son’s privacy as a personal affront. She craves nothing more than to know the ins and outs of Raja’s work life and love life, boundaries be damned. When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn’t be better.

It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja itching for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to leave behind.