"Alaoui's follow up to Dreams of Maryam Tair (2015) is the story of a troubled artist living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Thirtysomething Aya Dane lives in virtual isolation, seeing only her blue-blood lover David, whose background couldn't be more different from her own. Aya grew up in Tangiers in a crumbling family, her parents growing more distant from one another as Aya's older brother, Kareem, succumbed to religious fanaticism and distanced himself from the family. Aya left her past behind when she came to Cambridge on a scholarship for college, but the painful secrets of her past come to the surface when a mysterious collector known only as Ari commissions a piece from her, and her brother resurfaces, saying he's in town and wants to see her. These two events force Aya to confront everything she's been avoiding, from the cracks in her relationship with David to the deeply buried traumas of her past. A lush, vividly rendered exploration of the link between art and the depths of the psyche.

This is an engaging and at times suspenseful story about the creative process, trauma, and migration, aided by Alaoui's skillful pacing and vivid descriptions. While the characters populating Aya's life can verge on caricature, Aya herself, as an immigrant, a woman, and an artist, embodies the ways in which identity and memory mold one another. She is a complex combination of drive and uncertainty, and it can be riveting to watch her work as Alaoui describes the way she deliberates on color and texture, perception and purpose ' The lyrical prose pays off more than the psychological twists and turns, but the combination leaves a lasting impression."

A provocative and timely book for the New Year ' Aya Dane?is an elegant exploration of invisible cultural memories, creatively rendered on a canvas of migration. Here in her second novel, Mhani Alaoui shapes a well-thought-out protagonist with astute observations on the fear of those who are differentand on walls ' Alaoui goes into the importance of light and time of day to an artist. She brings in deaths, drug busts, and fanatic Islam.?Magical realism?crops up from time to time. She parses?hate?and its origins. PTSD in victims of sexual violence is not overlooked. The storyline rouses questions: What does it take to survive in America? How do images on a screen trump facts? Is the?migrant condition?definable? Can one generation right the wrongs of past generations? When does?cultural memory?affect each of us? Mhani Alaoui tosses so much together that, after a while, the jumble makes no sense. But then, all of a sudden, it does."