RAMADAN RAMSEY
By Louis Edwards
Every few days or so I look for a friend on social media and discover that they have shut down their Twitter account or put their Facebook profile on standby or deactivated their Instagram page. When I ask why, they say it’s all gotten out of hand: the fighting, the pettiness, the cynicism. One antidote to the darkness, I have found, is a warm, hopeful novel. Louis Edwards has written such a book with his latest, “Ramadan Ramsey,” about a young boy who seems destined for a life of disappointment but proves that a positive attitude can lead to great rewards.
The plot starts in 1999 in New Orleans, before the birth of our protagonist, Ramadan, when his parents are still teenagers. Ramadan’s mom, Alicia, is Black, a New Orleans native, from a large matriarchal family. His father, Mustafa, is Syrian and working in his uncle’s convenience store.
Despite a language barrier, the two young lovers start a passionate, star-crossed romance. Shortly into their courtship, Ramadan is conceived. Mustafa’s uncle, with his keen eye, realizes that Alicia is pregnant and perpetrates a cruel ruse: He persuades Mustafa to return to Syria before Alicia can tell him that he’s going to be a father. Mustafa is gone, Ramadan is born and then, when Ramadan is still a young child, Alicia dies of a fatal illness. Now parentless, Ramadan is remanded to the care of his loving maternal grandmother, Mama Joon.
The story jumps, first to 2005, shortly before Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in New Orleans, and then to 2011, when Ramadan is 11, almost 12, years old. Ramadan has grown into a kind and thoughtful, if introverted, boy. Mama Joon dies, and Ramadan is left with his aunt Clarissa, who has always felt Mama Joon loved Alicia and Ramadan more than her. Mama Joon has left Ramadan an inheritance, but unfortunately for him, Clarissa and her five no-account sons are keen to rob him of the money, even if they have to kill him to get it. One day, Ramadan steps out onto the family porch and is shot in the arm as a parade passes by. At first, the identity of the assailant is a mystery, but Ramadan soon learns that his aunt Clarissa and his cousins orchestrated the shooting. Ramadan briefly thinks about getting revenge by calling the police, but then decides against it — what would make the police believe him? And even if they did believe him, he doesn’t want to hurt this family. Instead he concludes that his survival depends on finding the only person still alive who he hopes will love him: his father.
The story increases speed once Ramadan arrives in the Middle East. While the first half of the book, the portion set in New Orleans, spans nearly 13 years, the second half takes place over a long weekend. This section of the book follows Ramadan from New Orleans to Turkey to Syria on his quest to find Mustafa. Ultimately, over the course of the book, Ramadan meets a host of memorable characters and visits various locations around the world, from the New Orleans Superdome, crowded with evacuees in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, to the Hagia Sophia stuffed with tourists.
If this all sounds like a bit much, that’s because it is. But Edwards holds readers’ attention with his attention to language and his skill at quick, yet rich, characterization. As the plot rips along, Edwards plays the characters straight, rather than for laughs, and in the process, he presents characters who are often able to overcome their pain or mistrust of others and do the right thing. Ramadan and the people around him respond to the dire situations they face as overwhelmed people often do: by doing the best they can.
Even with so much plot happening, Edwards is adept at callbacks and uses the earlier settings and plot points to arrive at greater meaning. More than once, as young Ramadan tries to make sense of his circumstances, he recalls the words of someone who was kind to him and repeats those words as mantras that guide him. “It’s so easy,” he tells himself, echoing a phrase he learns from a tarot card reader, which, to Ramadan, becomes a lesson that the obstacles in his path are not as formidable as they appear. “Everything depends on how hungry we are,” becomes another motto, this one picked up from Mama Joon, who explains to Ramadan that it will require great effort on his part to pursue any of his dreams. As basic as some of these mantras are, they bring comfort to Ramadan and potentially the reader, who may be reminded of the clarifying power of a simple idea.
Edwards, a critically acclaimed writer who has received both a Guggenheim fellowship and a Whiting Award, hasn’t published a book-length work in nearly two decades. His new book was worth the wait. In “Ramadan Ramsey,” Edwards has written an ebullient, picaresque novel. Despite the darkness Ramadan encounters, he focuses on the few friendly people who support him. He decides at the relevant points to lean into positivity rather than negativity — and not only overcomes the adversity of his narrative, but transcends it.
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