Lifted by the Great Nothing

Max doesn't remember his mother, who was murdered by burglars before they emigrated from Beirut to New Jersey. He lives with his father, Rasheed, who is enamored of his concept of American culture--baseball and barbeques--and tries to shed his Lebanese heritage completely. "When we are in America," Reed (for he goes by Reed in America, not Rasheed) tells Max, "we are Americans."

Rasheed has a single purpose in life: to provide Max with a joyful childhood. He showers his son with gifts out of a belief that he deserves all and is capable of anything. Max wants nothing more than to convince his father that he is a successful single parent. The only thing that can disrupt their peaceful universe is the truth--which it does, with force.

When Max turns seventeen, he learns from Rasheed's ex-girlfriend that his father has been lying to him. Max's understanding of the world is so rocked that he is subsequently launched on an uncertain mission to Beirut and then Paris.

Lifted by the Great Nothing is a startlingly graceful, and often hilarious, coming-of-age story about the lengths we go to preserve the untruths we live by. With its poignant relationships, unsettling misadventures, and surprising love stories, it is a touching and devastating portrait of a young man coming to terms with his country's--and his own--violent past.

“The characters immediately drew me in to this funny, heartbreaking novel—they are brilliantly alive. Karim Dimechkie is one of the most psychologically attuned, wise, and evocative young novelists I’ve read.” —Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds

“Karim Dimechkie is a promising young writer with a fresh, subversive take on the exile-and-immigrant experience and the stains it leaves on those who survive it or inherit it. Here’s a talent to watch and follow.” —Jim Crace, author of Harvest

“Karim Dimechkie’s talent leaps off of every page. I know his book will stay with me a very long time.” —*Philipp Meyer, author of The Son

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