The Coin
By Yasmin Zaher
The Coin by Yasmin Zaher is easily one of my favorite novels of the year because it contains the two things I love most: a surreal plot with an unhinged protagonist.
The story begins with an unnamed Palestinian woman living in NYC who’s obsessed with dirt. She abhors its ubiquity and all the places it can seep into: nails, clothes, the dark corners of the room. Naturally this one-sided rivalry clashes with her NYC lifestyle, but rather than succumb to a filth-induced ennui; she carves out power for herself as a teacher in an upscale elementary school where her students become her subjects, tools for her ego, and she gradually molds them in her image.
Though her methods are self-serving, and at times discriminatory (the protagonist herself has expressed her disdain for the poor, Mexicans, immigrants, brown people, etc…) there’s a universal appeal to her. Because as Zaher reminds, there are many ways that the disempowered react to global horrors. Sometimes they’re freedom fighters, sometimes they’re working toward building an egalitarian society, but often they can become petty tyrants who yearn for control over others in and outside their community.
Though, shortly after our protagonist becomes an adolescent ruler, the story takes a more surreal turn. Her obsession with dirt catalyzes into an unnerving journey of self-actualization and ego-death. When reading, I was reminded of The Vegetarian by nobel prize winner Han Kang. In both novels, we have women faced with extraordinary violence who gradually “decline” in ways that are initially imperceptible at first, but ultimately cataclysmic in the end. Yet, as we spend time with them, and see the world through their eyes, it becomes unclear whether or not they are unraveling or the world around them is. After all, when one is faced with extraordinary violence on a daily basis, then what exactly is the proper response?
The whirlwind plot of The Coin takes us through the streets of Paris, a childhood home in Palestine, and finally in an upscale apartment in Brooklyn where the story unravels in an extraordinary fashion. Our protagonist’s grief for her homeland, fear of poverty and decay and dirt all collide into one another, and give us an ending that I promise you’ll neither guess nor forget.