Harbor
Lorraine Adams
(Reviewer - Coletta Ollerer)
2004 Alfred Knopf
ISBN: 140004233X

After 52 days as a stowaway in a tanker's hold an illegal Algerian immigrant makes it to Boston Harbor in America.

In her debut novel, Lorraine Adams, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, brings a reporter's eye for detail to this story.

Associate Reviewer Coletta Ollerer writes:

A tale with three prongs: The escape from a homeland where life was so desperate, so horrifying that it made the lonely & dreadful prospect of becoming a stowaway look attractive. The frightening & solitary life of an alien in the USA. The terrifying awareness of an illegal that he might be of interest to Federal agencies.

In flashbacks we are taken back to Algeria & Aziz's military experiences there, including the brutal killing of a woman, & his unending fear of being tortured himself by his own comrades & superiors as he watched others in the throes of agony. He trusts no one.

“Now there was nothing Antar (the local warlord) did not believe was his right. There were those among Antar's men who took to depravity the way birds take to air. They had imaginations bloated with ways to inflict suffering, and they saw the permutated hell of their night times as an underground heaven they had never hoped to enter.” (p.157) This was the atmosphere that drove Aziz to escape his country.

He manages to get back to his family & intends to leave the country but his inability to get the proper papers from his government forces him to take the risk of becoming a stowaway. He is dirty, hungry, cold & without the native language when he drags himself onshore in Boston. A stroke of good fortune brings him to the attention of an Egyptian whose Arabic allows him to provide help. Aziz manages to get in touch with a friend, Rafik, from Algeria who he knows is living in Boston. Rafik is glad to hear from him & invites him to live at his flat. Aziz is only too aware he must be careful when dealing with Rafik, who is known to be untrustworthy, but this relationship is the only one he feels comfortable with in Boston. Illegals come & go at Rafik's place.

Aziz's lack of English & his unsettled background left him isolated. He doesn't understand a lot of what is going on “Mostly, he had no one to discuss most things with, so their weight and importance were all too often equal. Anything could matter. Anything could be anything.”(p.65) He watches people closely in an attempt to better understand this place. He feels invisible but lucky because he is here & not in Algiers, where terror is the order of the day. The story gives us a glimpse into the lives of these unfortunates and into the Federal agencies charged with their surveillance.

The federal agents have numerous meetings to determine if they have a case against Aziz & the others who pass through Rafik's apartment in Boston. They decide to arrest them. These are people who fled the fear & intimidation in their homelands only to find themselves faced with anxiety & suspicion in the land they hoped would give them a chance of refuge.

I enjoyed Harbor very much. It was an exciting read & I loved the insights into these characters, since such people do not come across my radar screen in everyday life.
(01/30/05)

Coletta
2005©Coletta Ollerer
A RebeccasReads.Com Associate Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
I have always enjoyed writing. As a teenager I submitted to magazines like Seventeen, & was politely rejected. As a young mother, I had several poems published in The Chicago Tribune. Born in Chicago in 1932, I still live in the area. Since I retired, I have had some success on the Internet with my book reviews, stories & poetry. I enjoy historical fiction mostly, but will read anything uplifting, informative & fun. When I'm not reading & writing, I'm making jewelry, sewing needlepoint, & painting.