Too Soon
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A Woman Is No Man
A01=Betty Shamieh
Arab and Jewish Americans
Author_Betty Shamieh
BIPOC
Book club
books about mothers and daughters
Broadway
Candice Carty-Williams
Category=FBA
Category=FT
Category=FXQ
dark humor
debut fiction
Detroit
diaspora
Enter Ghost
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
Etaf Rum
family drama
family saga
female friendship
funny books
Hala Alyan
Hamlet
historical fiction
history of Palestine
humorous books
intergenerational trauma
Isabella Hammad
Israel Palestine
Jaffa
Jamie Ford
Jessica George
literary fiction
Maame
Many Daughters of Afong Moy
matriarch
Min Jin Lee
misogyny
motherhood
multigenerational
New York Times Critics Pick
off-Broadway
Pachinko
Palestinian American
Palestinian American history
Queenie
racism
Ramallah
refugee camp
romance
Salt Houses
Shakespeare
The Arsonists City
The Parisian
theatre
West Bank
women authors
Product details
- ISBN 9781668094495
- Weight: 318g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 15 May 2025
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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For readers of Pachinko and Queenie, a funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut that explores exile, ambition, and hope across three generations of Palestinian American women.
Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she’s thrust into a conflict and history she’s tried to avoid all her life.
Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter—introducing Arabella to the very eligible grandson of an old flame and stirring up buried family history.
Naya is keeping a secret from her family that will change all their lives.
Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic (that might garner international attention) in the West Bank. Her grandmother, Zoya, plots to make a match between her and Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster.
Arabella and Aziz’s instant connection reminds Zoya of the passion she once felt for Aziz’s grandfather, a man she desired desperately, even after her father arranged another husband for her. In turn, Zoya would later marry off her youngest daughter, Naya, who aspired to date the Jackson 5 and wasn’t ready to be a wife or mother to Arabella at sixteen. Now that Naya’s children are grown and she’s arrived at an abrupt midlife crossroads, it’s time to settle old scores…
With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family’s epic journey from fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. Too Soon joins the stories that seek to illuminate our shared history and ask, how can we set ourselves free?
Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she’s thrust into a conflict and history she’s tried to avoid all her life.
Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter—introducing Arabella to the very eligible grandson of an old flame and stirring up buried family history.
Naya is keeping a secret from her family that will change all their lives.
Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic (that might garner international attention) in the West Bank. Her grandmother, Zoya, plots to make a match between her and Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster.
Arabella and Aziz’s instant connection reminds Zoya of the passion she once felt for Aziz’s grandfather, a man she desired desperately, even after her father arranged another husband for her. In turn, Zoya would later marry off her youngest daughter, Naya, who aspired to date the Jackson 5 and wasn’t ready to be a wife or mother to Arabella at sixteen. Now that Naya’s children are grown and she’s arrived at an abrupt midlife crossroads, it’s time to settle old scores…
With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family’s epic journey from fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. Too Soon joins the stories that seek to illuminate our shared history and ask, how can we set ourselves free?
Betty Shamieh (she/her) is a Palestinian American writer and the author of fifteen plays. She is the playwright-in-residence at the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Her six New York play premieres include the sold-out off-Broadway runs of Roar and Malvolio, a sequel to Twelfth Night, which were both New York Times Critic’s Picks. Shamieh was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and named a UNESCO Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue. She is a founding artistic director of The Semitic Root, a collective that supports innovative theatre cocreated by Arab and Jewish Americans. A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, she lives with her family in San Francisco.
