Hello everyone,
Today’s book (“Driving by Starlight” by Anat Deracine) is very special to me since I know the author and admire her very much.
Have a nice weekend!
mariana
Why did I read this book?
Last year, I had the fortune of meeting a truly inspiring group of colleagues while working on Gender Equity projects. As we got to know each other more and more, one of the members of this group shared with me that she was a published author.
Her pseudonym is Anat Deracine. According to her bio, she grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where she watched missiles fall from the sky during the Gulf War. She studied engineering and philosophy at Cornell University and political science at Oxford University.
Driving by Starlight is her debut novel. I’m excited to see what else she will publish.
What is the book about?
Girls growing up in Saudi-Arabia: Driving by Starlight is the story of two sixteen-year-old girls transitioning into womanhood in Saudi Arabia―a place in which being a woman is extremely complicated, to say the least. Leena and Mishail share their aspirations and dreams with us while knowing that most of them will never come true while they live in Saudi Arabia.
Freedom and rebellions: Growing up in Saudi Arabia came with a lot of restrictions for Leena and her friends. Freedom in the country is quite limited in most aspects: women can’t drive, can’t wear what they want, can’t make decisions about their future, can’t read whatever they wish, or study what they please. Naturally, when you can’t make your most important life choices you seek to conquer battles elsewhere, and it becomes important to win secret mini-rebellions against your oppressor.
Friendship: Friends always make life better, no matter where you live. While I was reading Driving by Starlight, it seemed to me that when you live in such tough circumstances, having friends becomes even more crucial. Throughout the story, we see the weight of friendship in Leena’s and Mishail’s lives. We also see how their friendship is challenged by external factors while they both explore the limits of their rebellions. In the story, we can appreciate that women can be fantastic allies or brutal enemies to each other. When the regime ensures women are fundamentally scared of change, many would rather keep the “safe” status quo, which might inevitably lead to betrayal.
“See, if you were a woman in Saudi Arabia, you dreamed of only three things. To marry a man you loved. To change Saudi Arabia. And to leave Saudi Arabia, at least for a little while. As for leaving, there were only two ways out —a KASP scholarship to a foreign university, which required a guardian’s permission and more influential connections than I had, or being sold into marriage to the highest bidder, also with a guardian’s permission.”
― Anat Deracine (Driving by Starlight)
Why should you read it?
To know more about life in Saudi Arabia: I knew very little about Saudi Arabia before this book. It was enlightening to read in more detail about what life looks like for the girls of Riyadh, and how they feel about it. It was revelatory to learn about the religious police (muttaween) and what they’re after, to understand in more detail the contact restrictions between men and women, and the fixed roles that society has set for women.
To appreciate things that you take for granted: When I read that girls in Riyadh got excited about things like wearing coloured socks to school to defy Saudi Arabia’s strict dress code, it made me feel very grateful for the freedom I enjoyed during my childhood. I don’t feel so bad anymore about having a quirky taste in clothes, at least I get to have a “style”. It’s mind-blowing to think that many of the restrictions described in the book exist today and that they apply only to women. Fortunately, there has also been some (very limited) change since the book was published, and women are now allowed to drive.
To support a promising new author: When I spoke to the author about her book, she told me how hard it is to get a published book promoted. One of the things I find fascinating about her is that she writes under a pen name. In her words: “Deracine in French means "uprooted." I chose to write under a pen name for a variety of reasons, the political situation in Saudi Arabia among them. Activists get arrested and charged as traitors. There were other considerations as well, like uniqueness and findability. (My real name is both common and frequently misspelled.) I consider myself a citizen of the world, having lived for years in many countries. At this time in history, when there is so much hyper-focus on identity as being defined by national boundaries, it was important to me to take on an identity that was more global. To be uprooted from one’s native homeland or society can also be a blessing. To be deracine can also mean to be free of the expectations rooted in a single culture.”
"I know it's dangerous...Everything we want is forbidden or dangerous. I just don't care."
― Anat Deracine (Driving by Starlight)
Links to buy the book
During these difficult times, try to support your local bookshop instead of using Amazon :-)
For this particular book, I couldn’t find availability in most small shops, so I’ve put the Amazon links at the top.
UK
Spain
Mexico
Gandhi (Libro electrónico)
Italy
US
Click here to find your local bookshop
//As an Amazon Associate I earn a commission from qualifying purchases via the above links.//
Favourite quotes
//The purpose of this section is to share some of my favourite book bits, so you can come back to them when you finish a book, if you wish to do so. I’ve put in bold my favourite ones, in case you want to read a few (or all) ahead of the book.//
“The ice-cream store had the usual sign that all restaurants did when they didn’t have a family section ― WOMEN AND ANIMALS NOT ALLOWED.”
“Colored clothes could get you sent to the headmistress’s office. Boys got you beheaded.”
“Girls were always such fools the first time they tried something rebellious. As if they thought all there was to it was having the idea, and they’d be transported daintily through their magical fantasy without being caught.”
“...because if women could take care of themselves, men would stop being respectful. Might even leave.”
“See, if you were a woman in Saudi Arabia, you dreamed of only three things. To marry a man you loved. To change Saudi Arabia. And to leave Saudi Arabia, at least for a little while. As for leaving, there were only two ways out —a KASP scholarship to a foreign university, which required a guardian’s permission and more influential connections than I had, or being sold into marriage to the highest bidder, also with a guardian’s permission.”
“When it became a daily necessity, you learned quickly not to make mistakes.”
“The real challenge was in what you did with your eyes. Women were used to averting their gaze from other people and the surveillance cameras on the street corners, heads bent toward the ground. Men looked directly at other men, and if you were shifty, nervous, or didn’t meet people’s eyes, you were not murwa, not a man at all.”
“My mother seemed to be under the popular impression that men, and boys in particular, were basically animals, unable to control themselves around women.”
“Mishail always said that you had to verify three things before having any interest in a man. He had to be at least two years older, attractive, and of the right horoscope. Everything else could be negotiated.”
“So easy for men to just set out on their adventures, leave everyone else behind.”
“The tension couldn’t last, and never did. But in Saudi Arabia, change always came with the sudden violence of a sandstorm, so that when it was over, you couldn’t even remember what used to be, and you certainly had no time to grieve.”
“Starting over takes courage, a special kind of courage that people lose as they get older, or when they have more to lose than to gain by giving up their old ways.”
“Water will find a way.”
“A river carves its own route.”
“I fought off the bitter laughter that was now second nature every time I discovered exactly how badly my country was broken.”
“Anger puts you in jail; patience lets you prevail.”
“Whatever. Even if you wait, chances are your husband won’t. You have to learn all the tricks, otherwise you’ll be a stereotypical Saudi wife, lying there like a dead fish.”
“My mother had always said that boys were like cigarettes or drugs: once you got involved, you couldn’t stop.”
“My grandmother used to say”, Mishail said, “women’s hearts are like sand dunes. Everyone is welcome, but no one can leave footprints.”
“Patience isn’t weakness,” he’d said. “There are things to be feared more than death. You’re angry and impatient because you think things will change while you’re alive. They won’t. But they might change after you die. They might change because you died.”
“That was what men did, went off to follow their personal jihads and assumed that the virgins they got in paradise would make up for all the women’s hearts they’d broken down here.”
“But what I’ve always been proud of is the way you try to save others from being treated unfairly, instead of trying to punish those who treat you unfairly.”
“...a boy was not just well within his rights to love two girls, he was practically a saint for choosing only two.”
“It was as if having such heavy gates and veils on our bodies had allowed our minds to wander with complete freedom.”
“Religion was what I felt now, what I could only ever feel out in the desert.”
“Tie a man in chains and he will show you the extent of his strength. Give a woman her freedom and she will show you the extent of her wisdom.”
“That’s because deep in his heart, a man wants to feel powerful, and in this country, the only way he can be powerful is if someone else is under him.”
“How strange it was that guilt and anger went together so well, like salt and lime! I hated everything and everyone these days, and that hate burned so bright it was molding me into someone new.”
“It struck me how easy it was to be generous with affection, and how the more i Have the more I received. We had each been in our corners, hoarding the tiny slice of love we still had, but together we had more than enough for everyone.”
“I told myself to be grateful that I had even this, the chance to feel love even if it wasn’t returned. Most girls never felt anything this deeply, never in their lives knew a stronger love than for the posters of actors.”
“But I couldn’t just say Insh’allah and hope for the best. I’d done it before out of laziness, sometimes out of fear, because that is what we women did, trusted our God and our guardians and never ourselves, and then complained when things didn’t go our way.
I understood now that love, not the niqab, was the real veil over our eyes, that hope and not the abaya was the cage in which we were imprisoned. Love and hope drove us to wait in silence to be rescued from our fates.”
“It caused me near physical pain to have to trust in the kindness of men this much.”
“If we prevent Nature from reaching its object through a straight path, it would be forced to seek it through a deviant route.”
“You don’t understand, and you won’t for a long time. A teacher’s greatest happiness is a student’s character. A father’s greatest pride is a child’s happiness. And an employer’s greatest success is being able to support others. I’ve given you nothing that I didn’t enjoy giving.”
“Mishail’s gift was that her every word felt like a hug.”
“Why couldn’t we stay those children forever, whose greatest worry was whether we’d be allowed to eat two Rico bars that day instead of one? Why did we have to deal with scholarships and marriage and parents who wouldn’t come home from prison?”
“Leena Hadi did not wear dresses, had never worn dresses, and wanted to punch the color pink the face.”