Anatomy of a disappearance : a novel

 by Hisham Matar. The author of In the Country of Men (2007) limns a boy's complex relationship with his father. Nuri El-Alfi is 10 when his mother dies, leaving him in the care of his remote father, Kamal, a former minister in an unnamed Arab country's regime who is now a dissident living in exile in Cairo. It is Nuri who first catches sight of Mona, a beautiful young woman who captivates him when he is 12. Kamal romances and then marries Mona, inciting deep jealousy in Nuri, who is sent off to boarding school soon after. Two years later, Nuri travels to Geneva to meet Mona and his father for a holiday. Mona arrives first, but his father never shows up, and the pair discovers in the newspaper that Kamal has been abducted from a Swiss woman's apartment. Over the next decade, Nuri is left to patch together the truth about his father's political and amorous activities, leading him to a startling revelation. A subtle and graceful character study. --Booklist (Check Catalog)