Swimming Toward the Light

Book excerpt: Angela Tehaan Leone’s debut novel, Swimming Toward the Light, depicts a Lebanese immigrant family in Washington, DC in the 1950s and gives us entrée into the male-dominated, independence stifling culture where female roles were rigidly prescribed. While the three older children liberated themselves by leaving home, the two youngest daughters, Lottie and Irene, were left to endure their parents’ repressions and Mama’s despotic regime. With unflinching candor, the narrative moves toward an unexpected and devastating conclusion.