ONLY IN LONDON
by Hanan al-Shaykh & translated by Catherine Cobham
In this fifth work of fiction from the Lebanese-born author of, most notably, Women of Sand and Myrrh (1992), four travelers arrive in London from Dubai and pair off in combinations that embody conventional (and, for all their surface oddity, rather predictable) cultural contrasts. The liveliest passages involve Samir, a hypersensitive transvestite who has unwittingly transported contraband. But al-Shaykh doesn’t do much with the initially promising other figures of a devious prostitute, a glamorous opium dealer, and a randy Sotheby’s weapons expert. Frothier and more fun than this author’s typical fiction, but it doesn’t dig deep, and doesn’t linger in the memory.