4.02: The Last Watchman of Old Cairo by Michael David Lukas (With Guest Host Gila Green)

NovelClass

This week, author Gila Green reprises her role as co-host to discuss The Last Watchman of Old Cairo by Michael David Lukas. Green is the author of several novels. Her most recent, No Entry, is a young adult novel following the trials of 17-year-old Yael Amar as she explores an elephant conservation program in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. No Entry is available now wherever books are sold.

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo was published on March 13, 2018 by Spiegel & Grau. In his second novel, Lukas attempts to tell three thrilling stories that span hundreds of years and converge on the magical city of Cairo, Egypt. The novel’s primary protagonist is Joseph al-Raqb, a literature student at Berkley with a Jewish-Egyptian mother who brought him to America as a child and a Muslim-Egyptian father who still lives and works in the city of Cairo.

After Joseph’s father dies and leaves him a mystery gift, Joseph must return to Cairo and discover his father’s final wishes. Almost a hundred years earlier, two Christian sisters from England return to Cairo for another archeological adventure to undercover the rumored and historic Ezra Scroll, a perfect iteration of the Torah that has been lost for thousands of years. The sisters have journeyed far in hopes that the scroll might reside in the attic of the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, one of the last synagogues in the city. Lukas brings his readers even further back in time to follow the exploits of Ali, Joseph’s ancestor from nearly a thousand years ago, whose curious duties as a Muslim night watchman of the Ibn Ezra Synagogue leads to generations of service to one of the strongest Jewish communities in Cairo.

Lukas undertakes a daunting task in his sophomore work, continually working out his own personal conflicts between his Jewish and Muslim backgrounds through his main characters. His ability to bring such a historic and iconic city out of the pages and into the readers imagination is nothing short of stunning and succeeds in bringing this complex, multi-faceted, and tumultuous city to life. Although some of his plots fall short over such an expansive narrative, Lukas undoubtedly proves his ability to weave an intriguing and evocative story that sticks with the reader for quite some time.

Next read(s): Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway and Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami.