Fedai
Good Fit
- Readers of Harold Robbins's sprawling bestsellers such as The Carpetbaggers, The Betsy or The Adventurers
- Anyone curious about adventure-thrillers written against the 1970s oil crisis and Middle Eastern politics
- Readers interested in the theme of moral emptiness inside a rich world
Not a Fit
- Readers who cannot tolerate explicit sex scenes, violence and drug descriptions: much of the book is built from these
- Anyone looking for a balanced, historically careful treatment of politics: Arab and Jewish stereotypes take up a lot of space
- Readers sensitive to demeaning treatment of women, threats of sexual violence and the depiction of child marriage
The novel begins in 1933 in the Arab desert, beside a tent. A strange friendship has grown between the Bedouin chief Semir and the Jewish traveller Ishak Bin Ezra: Bin Ezra mounts his horse, Semir gives him the Arab greeting, both men's eyes fill with tears, and Bin Ezra says «Aleichem shalom». In the tent his wife Nebile gives birth to a boy. The boy's eyes are strangely deep blue: the colour of the night sky in the desert. His name is Bedir Semir El Fay.
The story jumps to 1973. Bedir El Fay, now forty, is the Western manager of Middle Eastern oil money: a private Boeing 707, a yacht in France, an American wife Jordana and two sons. Flying from Los Angeles to Nice he has spent the night with two girls, who lie naked, and the cabin smells of hashish and amyl nitrite. He coldly orders that the girls be given five hundred dollars each and a return ticket.
His close men: the chief legal adviser Dick Carriage, his servant Cabir and the director of the Paris office Yusuf Ziyad. Bedir has an office in every country and in each a young, handsome, cultured director; the directors' main duty is to find beautiful girls for his parties. Bedir knows his wife Jordana does not sit at home during festivals and parties: Jordana is American, «not an Arab».
We read Jordana's own line: she has spent a night with a man in the Carlton hotel, hurriedly washes knowing her husband is coming, and leaves a hundred francs for the man. Many servants and receptionists keep her secrets. Her life consists wholly of social parties and secret affairs.
Yusuf Ziyad, for his part, does two things. First, on Bedir's behalf he meets the American film director Michael Vincent: he offers him ten million dollars to make a film about the life of the Prophet. On Bedir's desk there is a file on Vincent: his ties to anti-Semitic groups, his drinking problem, his being «persona non grata» in Hollywood. Second, he is preparing his own lover Jacques to win Jordana: he will go to the party with Princess Mara, she will praise his «bedroom mastery», and he will treat Yusuf only as a stranger.
- Short, conversational sentences and fast chapters make the book readable in bestseller fashion
- The political backdrop (the 1973 war, the oil embargo, Geneva banks) is the book's strongest and most interesting point for its period
- Most characters are types and caricatures: Yusuf, Mara, Vincent, the bankers
- In several places the sex scenes serve no plot and simply repeat
- Near the end (the rescue operation) the book turns into an adventure novel and picks up speed
The same author's famous novel about money, power and the film world
On Latin American politics and the fall of rich families
A more serious thriller about Palestinian organisations and the intelligence world
When the plane lands at Nice a telex arrives: Bedir is told «ten million sterling has been deposited in your account at the Syrian Bank in Geneva»; the signature is Abu Said, financial adviser of the fedayeen organisation «Al-Ikhwah». Bedir burns the paper. This money plays the role of a bridge between Bedir's Western money and the Palestinian armed struggle.
Meanwhile in Cannes, at the flat of a fat Lebanese named Ali Yasir, a meeting is held with the American Tony and the Frenchman Pierre: there are problems with sending drug goods to America, ships are seized, and everyone suspects everyone. After the meeting Ali knocks on the bedroom door: there is a smartly dressed young girl. The girl asks «you won't give my father away, will you?»: this is the daughter of Bedir's first marriage, a secret fighter who hates her father.
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