Fiction Book Group at Hops Hill At Atlantic – Brooklyn, NY

Fiction Book Group with Alexis

Discussing In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar

Led by former Greenlight general manager Alexis, our Fiction Book Group meets monthly to discuss paperback fiction, reading broadly in contemporary fiction with the occasional diversion into classics.

For November, the group discusses In the Country of Men, Hisham Matar’s acclaimed debut shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and winner of numerous international prizes. Set in Libya, 1979, In the Country of Men follows nine-year-old Suleiman, soon caught up in a world he cannot hope to understand—where the sound of the telephone ringing becomes a portent of grave danger; where his mother frantically burns his father’s cherished books; where a stranger full of sinister questions sits outside in a parked car all day; where his best friend’s father can disappear overnight, next to be seen publicly interrogated on state television. A stunning depiction of a child confronted with the private fallout of a public nightmare, In the Country of Men is a debut of rare insight and literary grace.