I recently finished reading ‘In the Kingdom of Men’ by Kim Barnes and I liked it. It’s well-written and an easy read but with frequent twists, turns and surprises.
As the NYT reviewer points out, it takes a bit of self-confidence to name the book after a quote from the Bible and then start chapter one with ‘In the beginning…’, but Kim Barnes pulls it off. The protagonist and narrator, a young American girl from Oklahoma named ‘Gin’ is raised by her fire-and-brimstone grandfather who tells her that she is a ‘daughter of Eve, a danger to herself and a temptation to all around her’. The book is the story of what the men around her view as her many transgressions. Gin is filled with defiance against all the rules that box her in and her refusal to be looked down upon.
Gin demonstrates her defiance (and transgressions) by getting pregnant on her first date with young Mason McPhee, a local college-bound boy. Her grandfather shuns her but Mason does ‘the right thing’ in 1967 by marrying her, giving up his dream of college and going to work in the oil patch. Gin has a miscarriage and cannot have any more children so things look bleak in their little honeymoon shack.
But Mason is recruited by Aramco which is building an American empire in Saudi Arabia. Just like that the two find themselves in a spacious, sumptuously-appointed house with a houseboy and a gardener in an American ‘compound’ in Eastern Saudi Arabia. After a few hours of orientation, Mason is sent to an offshore oil rig and Gin is left to figure out life in the Aramco compound and the rules. There are lots of them. Women are not allowed to leave the compound except in the company of men. They are not allowed to drive where they might be seen by Arab men. While alcohol is officially forbidden, most houses have a still to manufacture their own ‘sadiqi’. “Houseboys” tidy up; husbands go off to work; wives laze in bathing suits by the pool and have discreet affairs. “You take a bunch of healthy men and women, fence them up in the middle of the desert, throw in some sadiqi juice and see what happens,” one woman tells Gin. “It’s like ‘Peyton Place’ around here.” Outside are the realities of Saudi Arabia: women can’t walk alone or drive, and must dress in modest attire.
Gin manages to defy most of these rules. She becomes friends with her Punjabi houseboy and treats him as an equal – something viewed with horror by the other wives. She defies Islamic custom by wandering a market town with a bare-armed friend. She defies her husband by going off with an Italian photographer to film student protests during the Six-Day War. She makes one girlfriend but refuses to play by the rules. She doesn’t take golf lessons or learn to play bridge from the boss’s wife despite repeated invitations.
Meanwhile, accidents are happening off base and Mason gets involved in trying to stop them and the corruption and bigotry that fuel them and Gin, driven mad by loneliness and the strictures that surround her gets involved in dramas of her own. It’s a complex story about American venality and greed and those who defy the norms or try to change things get dealt with…one way or another.
As I said at the beginning, I liked this book a lot. I think most of you will too. Put it on your list.
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