Publisher's Weekly Review

This nuanced portrait of Gertrude Stein, presented through the eyes of a fictional male lover from Morocco known only as Muhammad, comes from noted Moroccan journalist and poet Najmi (A Little Life). The narrator, a poet and journalist named Abu Hasan, befriends the elderly Muhammad, who claims that during his younger days, he met Stein while she was in Tangier and was afterward invited to live at her celebrated Parisian salon. Knowing that he is dying, Muhammad persuades Hasan to write his memoirs. In turn, Hasan enlists the research aid of an American diplomat, Lydia Altman, who becomes his lover. Meanwhile, Muhammad tells of how, as a habitue of Stein's salon, he befriended famous artists and poets like Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire. He also fell in love with Stein, despite her "masculine" and "arrogant" personality, creating domestic discord with her longtime companion and lover, Alice B. Toklas. While Stein affectionately addressed Muhammad as "Mo," she was never a monogamous lover and continued her sexual liaisons with Toklas. In the present day, Hasan, who is married, and Lydia have their own relationship problems while he wrestles with writing Muhammad's life story. But Najmi makes the difficult, idiosyncratic Gertrude Stein as much the focus of his novel as Muhammad, Hasan, and Lydia, presenting the famed writer in a refreshingly new light. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.