![]() Meanwhile, a Saudi divorce ultimately means a mother’s loss of her children.Īnd then there’s the teenage son Faisal, who has his own set of problems, less captivating than Rosalie’s, but still compelling. ![]() Rosalie has so entangled herself into Saudi life that returning to the US presents its own challenges: she has no professional skills and she has even forgotten how to drive. She has transformed herself to fit into life in Saudi Arabia-“The Kingdom,” as it’s called. The solution to Rosalie’s problem is not simple. ![]() At one point Rosalie says, “I’m disintegrating in that house.” The home may look impressive, but inside is a family collapsing. ![]() If he wanted a Saudi wife, he would have married one.Īt the center of the story is the Al-Baylani villa, grand and garish, located in a neighborhood called The Diamond Mile, where Rosalie and Abdullah host vast family meals on Friday. Abdullah explains to a friend why he’s grown apart from his wife Rosalie: she has become “too Saudi” for him. ![]() Later, we meet Rosalie’s husband Abdullah, a man who keeps secrets, the biggest of all: his second wife of two years lives in a villa down the street. In these first pages, Rosalie discovers that her Saudi husband of 28 years has taken a second wife. In the opening scene of Keija Parssinen’s novel, The Ruins of Us, we meet Rosalie, a red-headed Texan who has been living in Saudi Arabia for more than two decades. ![]()
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