Too Soon

"Fiercely funny, sexy, and culturally resonant." --People, Best Books of the Month - "Shamieh balances her characters' painful family history and their boisterously funny voices." --The New Yorker

A "wonderfully brash and sparkling" (Oprah Daily) novel that explores exile, love, and freedom across three generations of women--"a Palestinian American Sex and the City" (The Atlantic).

Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she's thrust into a conflict and history she's tried to avoid all her life.

Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter and stirring up buried memories.

Naya is keeping a secret from her children that will change all their lives.

Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic--that might garner international attention--in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster...

With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family's epic journey fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut, Too Soon illuminates our shared history and asks, how can we set ourselves free?

Author: Betty Shamieh
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published: 01/28/2025
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9781668046548


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 08/01/2024 pg. 4
Publishers Weekly 09/23/2024
Kirkus Reviews 11/01/2024
Booklist 12/01/2024 pg. 108
BookPage 02/01/2025

About the Author
Shamieh, Betty: - Betty Shamieh (she/her) is a Palestinian American writer and the author of fifteen plays. She is the playwright-in-residence at the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Her six New York play premieres include the sold-out off-Broadway runs of Roar and Malvolio, a sequel to Twelfth Night, which were both New York Times Critic's Picks. Shamieh was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and named a UNESCO Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue. She is a founding artistic director of The Semitic Root, a collective that supports innovative theatre cocreated by Arab and Jewish Americans. A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, she lives with her family in San Francisco.