A review by margaretefg
The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa Al Aswany

4.0

There are so many characters whose lives are bound up with the Automobile Club. The staff there are almost like a background chorus, sometimes upholding the traditional order that oppresses them and sometimes barely willing to question it as nationalists and communists appear in the Club. Chapters focus on different characters, with young law student Kamel and his younger sister Saleha (a potential mathematician who may drop school to marry) telling their sections in first person. Throughout, it seems that the Gaafar family is always about to experience something awful, in part because of their tendency to be honest and generous, or in the case of Mahmud, stupid.