Too Soon - by Betty Shamieh

About the Book

"A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut that explores exile, ambition, and hope across three generations of Palestinian American women"--

Book Synopsis

"Fiercely funny, sexy, and culturally resonant." --People, Best Books of the Month - "Shamieh balances her characters' painful family history and their boisterously funny voices." --The New Yorker A "wonderfully brash and sparkling" (Oprah Daily, Best Books of the Year) novel that explores exile, love, and freedom across three generations of women--"a Palestinian American Sex and the City" (The Atlantic).Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she's thrust into a conflict and history she's tried to avoid all her life. Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter and stirring up buried memories. Naya is keeping a secret from her children that will change all their lives. Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic--that might garner international attention--in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster... With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family's epic journey fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut, Too Soon illuminates our shared history and asks, how can we set ourselves free?

Review Quotes

Oprah Daily Books That Got Us Through 2025 NPR Books We Love 2025 "The novel, which opens in 2012, has all the beats of a romantic comedy-one that unfolds partly in the West Bank. . . . The ribald humor, the over-the-top-ness that Shamieh brings to describing this struggle, reminded me-surprisingly-of mid-century Jewish American writers, especially Philip Roth. . . . These women are all antiheroes of a sort . . . . Shakespeare would approve." -Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic

About the Author

Betty Shamieh (she/her) is a Palestinian American writer and the author of fifteen plays. She is the playwright-in-residence at the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Her six New York play premieres include the sold-out off-Broadway runs of Roar and Malvolio, a sequel to Twelfth Night, which were both New York Times Critic's Picks. Shamieh was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and named a UNESCO Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue. She is a founding artistic director of The Semitic Root, a collective that supports innovative theatre cocreated by Arab and Jewish Americans. A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, she lives with her family in San Francisco.