{"product_id":"the-coin-1","title":"The Coin","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mind\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Coin'\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003es narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene. And yet the ideal self, the ideal life, remains just out of reach: her inheritance is inaccessible, her homeland exists only in her memory, and her attempt to thrive in America seems doomed from the start.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn New York, she strives to put down roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, where her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler, and the two participate in an intercontinental scheme reselling Birkin bags.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut America is stifling her--her willfulness, her sexuality, her principles. In an attempt to regain control, she becomes preoccupied with purity, cleanliness, and self-image, all while drawing her students into her obsessions. In an unforgettable denouement, her childhood memories converge with her material and existential statelessness, and the narrator unravels spectacularly.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn enthralling, sensory prose, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Coin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e explores nature and civilization, beauty and justice, class and belonging--all while resisting easy moralizing. Provocative, wry, and inviting, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Coin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e marks the arrival of a major new literary voice.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"[A] smart, sneering novel of capital and its consequences . . . In a spiraling, hallucinogenic plot,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Coin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003edraws a dotted line between the narrator's grandmother's garden in Palestine and a splatter of excrement on New York City subway tiles; between her grandfather's birthplace of Bisan--'now a low-income town in Israel, housing mostly Jewish families from Morocco and no Palestinians'--Stokely Carmichael and a Gucci window display appropriating the language of revolution . . . The whiplash feels intentional, funny in an absurdist way, like the narrator's existential seesawing between jaded American consumerism and the sadness and guilt of displacement . . . The novel's power is not in cohesion, but in chaos.\" --Lauren Christensen,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Arvida Book Co.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49945421381863,"sku":"","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0449\/4075\/5096\/files\/ScreenShot2024-07-12at2.04.59PM.png?v=1720818307","url":"https:\/\/arvidabookco.com\/products\/the-coin-1","provider":"Arvida Book Co.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}