Adam Ferris's Reviews > Hotline

"I am a hotline, I think, a conduit to all the answers I crave."

Muna and her son Omar have immigrated to Montreal after fleeing the civil war in Lebanon in the 1980s. As one would imagine, Muna faces many obstacles in her way to provide and sustain such basic necessities as food, money and shelter. Being a French teacher in her native country, she struggles to find a teaching job in Canada and eventually falls into a position as a hotline operator for a diet supplement company. In this role she connects with her clients on a deeper level and becomes intimately involved in their lives while climbing the corporate ladder. Muna's husband had been kidnapped in Lebanon and she lives in the uncertainty of his death while carefully trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy to her young son. In Hotline, we see Muna's evolution from a grieving widow, a struggling mother to a hopeful woman finding her own identity in her new land.

"There are times when it's easy to believe in yourself, but all that means is that you're overdue for a crisis of faith. The kindness of life never sticks around for long."

What Dimitri Nasrallah has written is a very intimate and honest portrayal of the innermost concerns and thoughts of an immigrant family. Montreal was a very effective and unique setting when it comes to languages and immigration in the 1980s and plays a predominant role in the plot. Melding elements of magical realism, 80s nostalgia, the realities of civil war, and single motherhood in a consumerist society, Hotline's Muna is a powerful protagonist alluring, vulnerable and very memorable. This book has single-handedly stoked my interest in this year's Giller Prize list.

"I am not interested in opening any more old boxes filled with memories that make no sense. I will not stare at a jar of sand or wonder where along the way everything went wrong."

"Love is an obligation you fall in love with over time. You will get to a place where you no longer see your lives as separate. Love is a plant that grows, and you are its custodians. you do not feel it so much as care for it, explore it, be tender to its tendencies, respect it."