Secret Son, which has just been longlisted for the Orange Prize, is the first novel by Moroccan-born Laila Lalami, who has previously published a collection of short stories. Youssef El-Mekki, nineteen, with dreams of becoming a film star, lives with his mother in a one-room shack cobbled together from corrugated metal and plastic sheeting in Casablanca’s impoverished and makeshift Hay An Najat district. His father died before he was born and his mother is held in quiet contempt by the neighbours. Worse still, Morocco’s economy is decidedly moribund and though Youssef is a good student, there seems little prospect of him finding a job once he graduates. In a development that seems symbolic of Youssef’s dreams fading away, a severe flood wrecks the local cinema and a Islamic political organisation know as “The Party” takes over the building instead: they continue to show films, but insist on contextualising them after the credits roll.

When Youssef learns from his mother that his father is not only alive, but also very rich, he tracks him down at his office and confronts him. His father, whose daughter and sole legitimate child is studying abroad, warms to him and installs him in his penthouse secretly, giving him an allowance and finding work for him in one of his hotels. However, Youssef can only be maintained in this way while his father’s wife remains unaware of his existence, and his fragile, newly-charmed life, suspended between two extremes in a deeply divided country, leaves him open to betrayal and exploitation.

Lalami now lives the United States, and it’s interesting that one of the novel’s dominant themes, the rise of radical Islamic politics, is the major international concern of her adopted country, though there’s no reason to suspect that this element is being overplayed to appeal to an American and English readership. Youseff’s half-sister, studying at UCLA, finds the ideal of self-determined love that operates in America is deeply at odds with her parents’ expectations. The choice she is forced to make between romantic love and daughterly duty can be seen to echo the way in which Morocco is torn between embracing Western values, which encourage freedom of expression but leave the country’s infrastructure and industry vulnerable to acquisition and asset-stripping, and Islamic conservatism, which promises social cohesion but imposes moral duties.

One particularly interesting section of the novel details the huge difficulties that young Moroccans encounter in finding work. Thousands of graduates find that their degrees are of no use whatsoever, and they are preyed upon by con-artists who devise ingenious ways of persuading desperate people to pay large registration or interview fees for jobs that don’t exist. The divisions in Moroccan society are succinctly summed up the cliques at Youseff’s university. There’s the rich kids (the “Mercedes-and-Marlboro group”), the “headscarf -and-beard faction”, the “Marx-and-Lenin group”, and the Berber Student Alliance and the Saharawis, students from distinct ethnic minorities within the country.

Secret Son is a quietly impressive debut, well-written and tightly-plotted, leaving the reader with plenty to think about. Perhaps it’s a little too quiet, too polite and well-mannered: it goes about its business and does everything it does very well, but the words never quite leap off the page. It belongs on the Orange longlist, but I wouldn’t bet on it scooping the award.

Reviewed by Paul Engles

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