Salvation Army (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents)

This brief and beautifully written novel provides a rare portrait of what it’s like to grow up gay—and mostly unaware—in Morocco. While Taïa avoids depicting the overt impact of religion or other aspects of traditional Muslim culture, he does allude to the inherent prejudices that his young protagonist faces as he discovers his attraction to men, especially his perplexing and titillating crush on his older brother.Although the story is more slice-of-life than carefully structured plot, Taïa succeeds in showing us the all-too-familiar joys and agonies of burgeoning queer identity as well as the ecstasy and sorrow of first love.

The writing is refreshingly light. It seems youthful. It flows well and it actually reads a little too quickly. It seems too easy and we begin to read between the lines.In the rare longer paragraphs there are occasional glimpses of real genius. This is a really talented writer, with a unique voice.The book doesn't follow a clearly chronological order of events and after a while it begins to feel like a collection of vignettes. Because of this, after getting to the end, the reader feels unfulfilled and the book appears incomplete. The impression is that the author could go on writing additional chapters forever or that some chapters were there but maybe they were removed at the last moment. Interestingly, at the same time, the reader feels hungry for more. Was that the actual intention of the writer, to leave us begging for more? - I am concerned that his other books will be similarly lacking in conclusion.

The best parts of Abdellah Taia's "Salvation Army" story are largely about the challenges of being gay in a Muslim country (albeit a relatively open one--Morocco); then finding a kind of sexual liberation in Europe; finally finding another kind of isolation in being a third worlder in a first world country. Taia's autobiographical protagonist is by stages idealistic, romantic, naive and disillusioned. Not surprising as he is following his heart in Morocco into forbidden territory, which is both dangerous and ultimately futile. Age brings hope and escape to another culture where being gay is not the offense, but being foreign is. There is a happy outcome to this particular tale (implied at least) because Abdellah Taia did become a successful literary figure in France and a kind of cult figure in Morocco, where his books have been published.This is an engaging contribution to the more general story of the modern immigrant, but with the special circumstances of an alternative sexual identity. A 3+ on the Amazon rating scale. A more extensive novel on this subject in a more mature voice is Tahar Ben Jelloun's "Leaving Tangier".

Salvation Army is a coming of age memoir, no doubt, but one made exotic not only for its settings--like Marrakesh, Geneva and Morocco--but by the fact that Abdellah Taïa's first stirrings of love, his earliest pangs of sexual awakenings were for his attractive older brother, Abdelkébir. This should be an uncomfortable situation with a young boy having incestuous feelings like these, but as the first sentence of the introduction by Edmund White says: "This is a novel about love in all its forms."I couldn't agree more. Abdellah's undefined worship/lust for his older brother was comfortably unrequited (and most likely unnoticed). However that love, the narrator's earliest most secret love, is just one of the love stories depicted in Salvation Army - among them love of family, culture, country and life itself.I fell in love with this book -- with what it depicted and what it did not -- and with Abdellah Taïa, Morocco's very first openly gay author to publish a memoir, one so real and naked that they both will always dominate that warmest, most exotic corner of my heart. ~ Taylor Siluwé, author of  Dancing With The Devil

A great coming of age story. I would recommend it!

Wonderful story. Read it. Taia has a true gift for ensuring his reader lives the moment.

Amazing that there is so much in so few pages. However I wanted the story to go further up to the present if possible.

Contrary of the common trend, the movie was much better than the book. Notwithstanding this is a very honest, can say, uniquely honest book portraying the sexual awakening of a boy.

This is not a long book and you could easily read it in a few hours. Even the writing is larger than usual. The book is not linear and is not really an autobiography in the sense one would expect. It is a series of 'photographs in pictures' or vignettes of the author's life. It moves from Morocco to Switzerland in a somewhat haphazard way with some resulting confusion. I couldn't figure out why some of the characters (the woman dealing with foreign students for example) were even in the book at all as they added nothing. I found it disappointing and it shows the clear marks of someone wishing to be taken seriously as a 'literary' figure. This is not an autobiography in the strict sense so be careful if you order itl

It was OK. A bit too slow and familiar for my tastes.

Difficult to put down great page turner.