Every Exit Brings You Home: A Novel by Naeem Murr

I’d give this one three stars—maybe three and a half on a generous day.

I read a very favorable review in the Washington Post (by breaking through their firewall, just to annoy Jeff Bezos), and the premise immediately drew me in: a Palestinian man, Jack, living in Chicago with his traditional Muslim wife, juggling a complicated identity while serving as the reluctant head of a crumbling condo association. Add in his past, both personal and political, and it feels like the setup for something rich and nuanced.

And in many ways, it is. There’s certainly a lot going on here: Jack’s strained marriage to Dimra; his tangled relationships (romantic and otherwise); the rotating cast of condo residents (one character in particular, May, is especially memorable); and the recurring flashbacks to Gaza that attempt to ground his present life in a traumatic past. These flashbacks make the novel immersive and emotionally sharp, though they almost feel like a separate novel. Some of the later scenes, in particular, carry real weight and linger in a satisfying way. Murr imbues a great deal of humanity into his characters. They are flawed, messy, and often unlikeable, but very real.

And yet, for me, the book never quite coheres.

The structure is often chaotic, with frequent jumps in time that interrupt the flow and make it difficult to stay oriented. The early chapters drag, and the flashbacks into the past can feel like a chore to read. The final third picks up momentum, but it feels a bit like arriving late to a story that’s still unsure of where it’s going.

Ultimately, the plot doesn’t land with much force; it meanders rather than resolves.

Characterization is similarly uneven. Some figures are complex and memorable, while others feel thin or even caricatured, making it hard to keep track of who’s who when they reappear. Jack himself is intentionally complicated, but also frustratingly opaque. I never quite connected with him, which made it difficult to stay fully invested. He’s obviously a good person, but the complicated web of lies he’s constructed around his life seems unnecessary, given the basic goodness of his character.

The flashbacks to Palestine are meant to deepen the narrative, and at times they do, offering glimpses of real suffering and history. But they can also feel compressed and oddly detached—too much weight squeezed into too little space. I’ve spent a lot of effort avoiding reading about what’s going on in Palestine; there’s so much nefarious propaganda from every side that even in a novel, I find it hard to fully accept what’s presented.

This is the kind of novel I can imagine dividing readers. There’s ambition, intelligence, and genuine emotional power here. But there’s also a lack of focus that keeps it from fully delivering on its promise. I wanted to like it more than I did.