It's a pity that Deborah Campbell's new book has such a Nancy Drew-like title, because it is actually a serious, riveting work about a part of the world that too many of us know too little about.
"A Disappearance in Damascus" is the story of Ahlam, an Iraqi refugee in Syria who is arrested by the Syrian government and disappears. Her arrest almost certainly was prompted by her relationship with Western journalists, including Campbell; Ahlam is fluent in English and has worked as a translator and "fixer." So Campbell sets off to find her.
It's a compelling story, a page-turner, and one that sheds light on the fraught political situation in the Mideast, the lives of ordinary citizens and the West's culpability in the giant mess.
One of Campbell's great skills as a writer — besides her formidable reporting chops — is her ability to clearly explain complicated politics without oversimplifying. And so the first part of this book works as a sort of primer of the complex situation in the Mideast — the tribal conflicts, the vacuum in leadership and disappearance of the professional class after the fall of Saddam Hussein (problems that Campbell deftly places at the feet of the United States), the suddenly unemployed but still armed army, the growing refugee communities and the growing unease of governments.
Some of her observations have echoes of foreboding for the U.S. and our current political situation: The turmoil's "true genesis was a class war: the city versus the countryside," she writes, as well as "the privatization of state lands and services, the cuts to subsidies that most benefitted the poor."
The book opens in 2007, when Campbell is undercover in Syria. She poses as a university professor (which she also is, in Vancouver), since it is dangerous there for journalists. She is working on a piece for Harper's on the growing community of Iraqi refugees in Syria, and this is how she meets Ahlam.
Campbell depicts Ahlam as a strong, vibrant, charismatic woman, one of the only girls in her village to be educated. Her father wanted her to grow up fearless and self-reliant. "He raised me like a boy," Ahlam says. The women become friends.
The book is steeped in atmosphere and sensual details, bringing Damascus to vibrant life, a reminder that the war-torn neighborhoods we see in the news are only one part of a sophisticated ancient world.
