Hotline, a novel by Dimitri Nasrallah, is a quiet and personal portrait of Montreal in the ’80s through the eyes of Muna, a recent immigrant from Lebanon.
Struggling to find employment as a teacher so that she can support her young son, Omar, Muna picks up work as a hotline operator for a weight loss program. While the novel examines the ways in which self care is literally packaged as a cure-all for the troubles that run deep in the lives of the customers Muna interacts with, Muna’s impromptu counselling sessions with her customers slowly become meaningful to her as well. Muna’s joy at her ability to connect with other people at a time when it seems that her only friend is her husband Halim, who Muna imagines is with her in Canada despite his disappearance years before in Beirut, sets the tone for Hotline as an uplifting novel.
Snappy and funny, Hotline’s emotional core is Muna’s care for her son, Omar, in the wake of her husband’s disappearance. With no one to confide in about the confusion of being out of place and, to a large extent, out of time — Muna is haunted by memories, dreams, and visions of Halim — Muna’s driving force throughout this novel is her hope that Omar will “love and be loved by this new world”. Simultaneously, Muna wonders if she herself can, or even wants to, fit in.
Out of all of the Canada Reads books nominated this year, Hotline is the gem among them that I feel like I would not have heard of otherwise. In this short but masterfully crafted novel, Nasrallah explores the ways that Muna’s class, her accent, and eventually her job all at different points in her life come to symbolize who she is, stripping away her individuality to turn her into a palatable idea rather than a complex and grieving person. While the novel itself feels thoughtful, it also feels like it has a lot
Of faith in the ‘Canadian dream,’ if that is even a concept. Something along the lines of: if you work hard and keep your head held high, you can have your very own maple tree. That might seem like an exaggeration, but I can confirm that Hotline presents an image of Canada in which hard work is rewarded with money and recognition… and that maple trees are involved.
Examining the complicated intersection between grief and memory, Hotline immerses readers in the story of a family that is trying to redefine itself after being scattered by war and immigration. Perfect for anyone who loves Montreal, misses the eighties, or, like me, wants to hear Muna’s sharp and funny observations in their head, Hotline is a fantastic read.