Rabih Alameddine, award-winning author of The Wrong End of the Telescope, joined us to celebrate the release of his new novel, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother). Wildly original and wickedly funny, Alameddine’s latest explores the profound bond between a mother and son across decades. Author and editor John Freeman, who co-edited the forthcoming Penguin Book of the International Short Story with Alameddine, joined Alameddine for a compelling discussion of this tragicomic love story.
Featured Book
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The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
By Rabih Alameddine
Published by Grove/Atlantic
In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and “the neighborhood homosexual,” Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son’s desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja’s work life and love life, boundaries be damned.
When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn’t be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget.
Told in Raja’s irresistible and wickedly funny voice, the novel dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities—a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love.
In Conversation
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Rabih Alameddine
Rabih Alameddine
Rabih Alameddine is the author of the novels The Wrong End of the Telescope; Angel of History; An Unnecessary Woman; The Hakawati; I, the Divine; Koolaids; the story collection The Perv; and one work of nonfiction, Comforting Myths. He has won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He received the Dos Passos Prize in 2019 and a Lannan Award in 2021.
Photo Credit: Oliver Wasow
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John Freeman
John Freeman
John Freeman is co-editor (with Rabih Alameddine) of the forthcoming Penguin Book of the International Short Story, and the author and editor of another dozen books including California Rewritten, his new book of essays. An executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf, he hosts Alta’s California Book Club once a month over Zoom.
