Rabih Alameddine has spent his career writing about the spaces where tragedy and comedy meet. His new novel, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), arrives as a tragicomic love story set in Lebanon, told through the voice of Raja, a beloved philosophy teacher and “the neighborhood homosexual.” When Raja embarks on a writing residency in America, he gains long-sought distance from both personal and national turmoil. But his journey soon compels him to confront the past, weaving a powerful narrative of memory, identity, and resilience.
Alameddine celebrated the release of the book at The Center for Fiction, where he sat down with John Freeman, who co-edited the forthcoming Penguin Book of the International Short Story with Alameddine. The conversation ranged from the novel’s tenderest scenes to the horrors of the present moment, with Alameddine speaking plainly about terror, survival, and the stories we tell ourselves to keep going.
The Line About Returning to Reality
Freeman opened the discussion by pointing to one of his favorite lines in the book. After Raja emerges from a central experience that Freeman refused to describe, he is asked to interpret it. Raja responds that what was traumatic was returning to this reality, and not what happened to him there. Freeman felt the line applied to many sections of Raja’s life, and to the tornadic reality we live in right now.
He noted that sometimes returning to what is presumed to be normal is almost worse than being in a difficult circumstance. Alameddine agreed, drawing on his own recent experiences.
Living Through Terror
Alameddine described a world in horrible shape, with genocide committed and some people cheering it. He spoke of people disappearing off the streets, of Gestapo with masks on picking people off the street. He is terrified of being taken in a van to El Salvador before he could do anything.
“I’m terrified of that,” he said. “And I lived through that for a long time. I came over here thinking it could never happen, but it happens now.”
The question became how to survive. What kind of stories do we tell ourselves to go through this?
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Alameddine offered a bleak assessment of how most people survive. Most people believe it will not happen to them. They think, “They’re picking up people who look Latino, so I as a white person will not have to go through that.” Most of us believe it can’t happen to us because we were born in this country, or because of many other things.
But Alameddine wants to correct that belief. It can happen. It starts with what they call aliens or whatever. Once you allow the army onto the streets, it’s a downward spiral.
The book’s humor comes from characters who can compartmentalize and tell different stories about this. Raja, in Alameddine’s mind, is less fucked up than he is. He is someone Alameddine would like to be, able to hold multiple narratives at once.
Tenderness Amid Horror
Freeman praised the book for its moments of tenderness, noting that it never looks away from the situation in which Raja, his mother, his Aunt Yasmine, and everyone else in the book find themselves. One favorite line describes “the women talked and talked, stroking each other with words.”
Even as Raja is being driven toward a terrible experience, he is totally stoned in the back of an orange BMW 2002, with the night air blowing on his face in the most delicious way. Freeman felt that Alameddine had retrieved reality from the idea that it is totalized by terrible things. A terrible thing can sit right next to a nice thing, and the nice thing is not invalidated.
Finding Inspiration in Terrible Times
Freeman noted that he lives with this because he is lucky enough to read a wonderful book and be inspired. Alameddine responded with a similar sentiment.
“I live with this because I am lucky enough that I can read a wonderful book and be inspired,” Alameddine said. “I’m lucky enough that I can listen to Beethoven’s 15th Sonata and just burst into tears. That lifts me.”
Raja finds his enjoyment somewhere too. The world is really horrific, and we should be able to look at it squarely. But Alameddine works because he can still find some inspiration from beauty, from real beauty in this world. Some of the beauty is actually people, though he really hates people, so it’s difficult for him to admit that.
The Core Experience
Freeman alluded to the core experience of the book during the conversation, which he declined to describe further. Instead, he pointed to the line about returning to reality, asking how Raja and others manage to live with what they know.
The book is funny, Alameddine confirmed, even as it deals with the darkest subjects.
A Told Story
Alameddine’s discussion with Freeman covered a range of themes, including the novel’s tragicomic balance and the weight of living through political terror. The conversation drew attention to the novel’s central tension: how a writer balances humor with horror without losing either.
The book was celebrated at The Center for Fiction, and the reading there stood as a reminder of the novel’s reception.
Key Facts
- Book: The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
- Author: Rabih Alameddine
- Co-editor of Penguin Book of the International Short Story: John Freeman
- Release: Celebrated at The Center for Fiction
- Setting: Lebanon
What We Make of It
Alameddine’s willingness to speak plainly about terror and survival reads as deeply human rather than performative. He balances grim honesty about the world with a tender, funny portrait of a mother and son, and the result is a book that asks readers to look squarely at what is happening while also finding ways to enjoy life.
The conversation with Freeman made clear that Alameddine is interested in the truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable. He has found that most people believe they are safe because they were born in this country, or because they look a certain way.
That belief, he argues, is dangerous. Once you allow the army onto the streets, it is a downward spiral. The book, he hopes, offers a way to resist that spiral by holding multiple stories in your head at once.
The book is funny, and it is tender, and it is honest. Those three qualities do not cancel each other out. They sit together, as Raja does in the back of that BMW, stoned and delighted by the night air.
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