1026. Naeem Murr

In "Every Exit Brings You Home," Naeem Murr returns after a twenty‑year hiatus with a novel that maps the tangled lives of a Palestinian diaspora community living in a Chicago condominium. The book, published by W.W. Norton, uses the building’s shared spaces to examine how immigrant families negotiate financial strain, cultural memory, and the yearning for a place called home. Murr’s own background—a former Stegner Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, and longtime Chicago resident—infuses the narrative with authentic detail, positioning the work within contemporary literary fiction that foregrounds immigrant experiences.

At the heart of the story is Jamal Shaban, known as Jack, a flight attendant whose identity is split across continents, languages, and secret histories. Jack’s compartmentalized existence—married yet secretive, presumed gay yet fluid, constantly in transit—mirrors the broader dislocation felt by many refugees who must code‑switch daily. His relationships with his wife Dimra, a single‑parent neighbor, and a naïve coworker named Birdie illustrate the novel’s exploration of alternate lives, grief over a lost mother, and the lingering trauma of a forbidden Gaza romance. By portraying Jack’s layered self‑presentation, Murr interrogates how diaspora individuals construct authenticity amid competing cultural expectations.

Murr reveals that the novel sprang from a single, striking image: a middle‑aged couple in an old Chevy Impala hooked to a U‑Haul, a tableau that captured both departure and arrival. This visual cue, combined with research into Gaza refugee camps that preserve pre‑1948 communal structures, sparked a narrative about home that exists simultaneously in past, future, and present absence. The book’s themes of displacement, fluid sexuality, and the search for belonging resonate with readers navigating global migration, making it a timely contribution to discussions of identity, home, and the psychological cost of living between worlds.