
Secret Son
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Fajer Al-Kaisi
-
By:
-
Laila Lalami
About this listen
When a young man is given the chance to rewrite his future, he doesn't realize the price he will pay for giving up his past....
Casablanca's stinking alleys are the only home that 19-year-old Youssef El-Mekki has ever known. Raised by his mother in a one-room home, he dreams of escape - until, one day, the father he thought dead turns out to be very much alive and whisks him from the slums into the luxurious life of Casablanca's elite. But as he leaves the poverty of his childhood behind him, he comes up against a starkly unglittering reality....
©2010 Laila Lalami (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Moor's Account
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this stunning work of historical fiction, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America--a Moroccan slave whose testimony was left out of the official record. In 1527 the conquistador Pnfilo de Narvez sailed from the port of Sanlcar de Barrameda with a crew of 600 men and nearly a hundred horses. His goal was to claim what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States for the Spanish crown and, in the process, become as wealthy and famous as Hernn Corts.
-
-
Terrific read evoking 16th century New World life
- By William on 11-04-15
By: Laila Lalami
-
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As four Moroccans illegally cross the Strait of Gibraltar in an inflatable boat headed for Spain, author Laila Lalami asks: What has driven them to risk their lives? And will the rewards prove to be worth the danger? There's Murad, a gentle, unemployed man who's been reduced to hustling tourists around Tangier; Halima, who's fleeing her drunken husband and the slums of Casablanca; Aziz, who must leave behind his devoted wife in hope of securing work in Spain; and Faten, a student and religious fanatic whose faith is at odds with an influential man determined to destroy her future.
By: Laila Lalami
-
Conditional Citizens
- On Belonging in America
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Laila Lalami
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to US citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of American rights, liberties, and protections.
-
-
Blew my mind!
- By Leila Jaafari on 10-20-20
By: Laila Lalami
-
The Spider's House
- A Novel
- By: Paul Bowles
- Narrated by: Cheryl Smith, Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dilemma of the outsider in an alien society, and the gap in understanding between cultures, recurrent themes of Paul Bowles’s writings, are dramatized with brutal honesty in this novel set in Fez, Morocco, during that country’s 1954 nationalist uprising. Totally relevant to today’s political situation in the Middle East and elsewhere, richly descriptive of its setting, and uncompromising in its characterizations, The Spider’s House is perhaps Bowles’s best, most beautifully subtle novel.
-
-
Not my favorite writing style
- By Oakdale Beagle on 09-18-24
By: Paul Bowles
-
The Other Americans
- A Novel
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, P.J. Ochlan, Adenrele Ojo, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant—at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.
-
-
Don't bother - there are so many better stories
- By Robin Davis on 10-22-19
By: Laila Lalami
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
The Moor's Account
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this stunning work of historical fiction, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America--a Moroccan slave whose testimony was left out of the official record. In 1527 the conquistador Pnfilo de Narvez sailed from the port of Sanlcar de Barrameda with a crew of 600 men and nearly a hundred horses. His goal was to claim what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States for the Spanish crown and, in the process, become as wealthy and famous as Hernn Corts.
-
-
Terrific read evoking 16th century New World life
- By William on 11-04-15
By: Laila Lalami
-
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As four Moroccans illegally cross the Strait of Gibraltar in an inflatable boat headed for Spain, author Laila Lalami asks: What has driven them to risk their lives? And will the rewards prove to be worth the danger? There's Murad, a gentle, unemployed man who's been reduced to hustling tourists around Tangier; Halima, who's fleeing her drunken husband and the slums of Casablanca; Aziz, who must leave behind his devoted wife in hope of securing work in Spain; and Faten, a student and religious fanatic whose faith is at odds with an influential man determined to destroy her future.
By: Laila Lalami
-
Conditional Citizens
- On Belonging in America
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Laila Lalami
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to US citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of American rights, liberties, and protections.
-
-
Blew my mind!
- By Leila Jaafari on 10-20-20
By: Laila Lalami
-
The Spider's House
- A Novel
- By: Paul Bowles
- Narrated by: Cheryl Smith, Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dilemma of the outsider in an alien society, and the gap in understanding between cultures, recurrent themes of Paul Bowles’s writings, are dramatized with brutal honesty in this novel set in Fez, Morocco, during that country’s 1954 nationalist uprising. Totally relevant to today’s political situation in the Middle East and elsewhere, richly descriptive of its setting, and uncompromising in its characterizations, The Spider’s House is perhaps Bowles’s best, most beautifully subtle novel.
-
-
Not my favorite writing style
- By Oakdale Beagle on 09-18-24
By: Paul Bowles
-
The Other Americans
- A Novel
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, P.J. Ochlan, Adenrele Ojo, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant—at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.
-
-
Don't bother - there are so many better stories
- By Robin Davis on 10-22-19
By: Laila Lalami
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
The Lioness of Morocco
- By: Julia Drosten, Christiane Galvani - translator
- Narrated by: Henrietta Meire
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Independent-minded Sibylla Spencer feels trapped in 19th-century London, where her strong will and progressive views have rendered her unmarriageable. Still single at 23, she is treated like a child and feels stifled in her controlling father's house. When Benjamin Hopkins, an ambitious employee of her father's trading company, shows an interest in her, she realizes marriage is her only chance to escape.
-
-
The Lioness o Morocco
- By MM on 06-23-17
By: Julia Drosten, and others
-
The Kill Artist
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the assassination of his wife and son, Gabriel Allon retires from his brutal anti-terrorist career and loses himself in his previous cover job: art restoration. But when Tariq al-Hourani, the Palestinian terrorist responsible for his family’s death, begins a killing spree designed to destroy Middle East peace talks, Gabriel once again slips into the shadowy world of international intrigue. In a global game of hide-and-seek, the motives of Gabriel and Tariq soon become more personal than political.
-
-
Reluctant Assassin
- By Snoodely on 10-30-13
By: Daniel Silva
-
Guapa
- By: Saleem Haddad
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rasa spends his days translating for Western journalists and pining for the nights when he can sneak his lover, Taymour, into his room. One night Rasa's grandmother - the woman who raised him - catches them in bed together. The following day Rasa is consumed by the search for his best friend, Maj, a fiery activist and drag queen star of the underground bar Guapa, who has been arrested by the police.
-
-
Guapa
- By Mah Maass on 08-25-16
By: Saleem Haddad
-
The Heart's Invisible Furies
- A Novel
- By: John Boyne
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery - or at least that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.
-
-
Outstanding. A Must listen.
- By Keith G on 09-04-17
By: John Boyne
-
Dreams from My Father
- A Story of Race and Inheritance
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a Black African father and a White American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a Black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family.
-
-
Powerful
- By Gene R. on 10-26-21
By: Barack Obama
-
Behold the Dreamers
- A Novel
- By: Imbolo Mbue
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself; his wife, Neni; and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty - and Jende is eager to please. Clark's wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses' summer home in the Hamptons.
-
-
Overhyped
- By Rochelle on 08-27-16
By: Imbolo Mbue
-
American Spy
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young Black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes.
-
-
A Spy Novel for Black folk.
- By AJ Walker on 10-07-19
By: Lauren Wilkinson
-
Swing Time
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Pippa Bennett-Warner
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: About rhythm and time, about Black bodies and Black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early 20s, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either. Tracey makes it to the chorus line but struggles with adult life, while her friend leaves the old neighborhood behind, traveling the world as an assistant to a famous singer, Aimee, observing close up how the one percent live.
-
-
Enthralling and instructive. A novel of the highest caliber
- By Richmond Surrey on 07-27-17
By: Zadie Smith
-
Honor
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past.
-
-
Wow.
- By Robert Bryant on 01-19-22
By: Thrity Umrigar
-
The Thing Around Your Neck
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her most intimate and seamlessly crafted work to date, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie turns her penetrating eye on America in 12 dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.
-
-
Chima...The a solute Best
- By PAUL NGALAME on 05-17-18
-
The Tourist
- A Novel
- By: Olen Steinhauer
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the vein of John le Carré and Graham Greene, this contemporary international thriller follows Milo Weaver as he is drawn into a conspiracy that links riots in the Sudan, an assassin committing suicide, and an old friend who's been accused of selling secrets to the Chinese. Once the CIA and Homeland Security are after him, the only way for him to survive is to return, headfirst, into Tourism.
-
-
A book not for dummies
- By Tim on 03-23-09
By: Olen Steinhauer
-
The Unseen World
- A Novel
- By: Liz Moore
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ada Sibelius is raised by David, a single father and head of a computer science lab in Boston. Homeschooled, she accompanies her loving father - brilliant, eccentric, socially inept - to work every day. By 12 she is a painfully shy prodigy. At the same time that the lab begins to gain acclaim, David's mind begins to falter, and his mysterious past comes into question. When her father moves into a nursing home, Ada is taken in by one of David's colleagues. She embarks on a mission to uncover her father's secrets.
-
-
Appreciated but Not Enjoyed
- By Margot T. on 01-21-17
By: Liz Moore
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As four Moroccans illegally cross the Strait of Gibraltar in an inflatable boat headed for Spain, author Laila Lalami asks: What has driven them to risk their lives? And will the rewards prove to be worth the danger? There's Murad, a gentle, unemployed man who's been reduced to hustling tourists around Tangier; Halima, who's fleeing her drunken husband and the slums of Casablanca; Aziz, who must leave behind his devoted wife in hope of securing work in Spain; and Faten, a student and religious fanatic whose faith is at odds with an influential man determined to destroy her future.
By: Laila Lalami
-
The Moor's Account
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this stunning work of historical fiction, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America--a Moroccan slave whose testimony was left out of the official record. In 1527 the conquistador Pnfilo de Narvez sailed from the port of Sanlcar de Barrameda with a crew of 600 men and nearly a hundred horses. His goal was to claim what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States for the Spanish crown and, in the process, become as wealthy and famous as Hernn Corts.
-
-
Terrific read evoking 16th century New World life
- By William on 11-04-15
By: Laila Lalami
-
Conditional Citizens
- On Belonging in America
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Laila Lalami
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to US citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of American rights, liberties, and protections.
-
-
Blew my mind!
- By Leila Jaafari on 10-20-20
By: Laila Lalami
-
The Dream Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo, Barton Caplan
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes.
-
-
The next parable of the sower
- By Jess on 03-18-25
By: Laila Lalami
-
The Darling
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Mary Beth Hurt
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Darling is Hannah Musgrave's story, told emotionally and convincingly years later by Hannah herself. A political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah has fled America to West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends and colleagues of Charles Taylor, the notorious warlord and now ex-president of Liberia. When Taylor leaves for the United States in an effort to escape embezzlement charges, he's immediately placed in prison.
-
-
Complex and compelling
- By Ellen H. Anderson on 02-05-05
By: Russell Banks
-
The Other Americans
- A Novel
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, P.J. Ochlan, Adenrele Ojo, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant—at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.
-
-
Don't bother - there are so many better stories
- By Robin Davis on 10-22-19
By: Laila Lalami
-
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As four Moroccans illegally cross the Strait of Gibraltar in an inflatable boat headed for Spain, author Laila Lalami asks: What has driven them to risk their lives? And will the rewards prove to be worth the danger? There's Murad, a gentle, unemployed man who's been reduced to hustling tourists around Tangier; Halima, who's fleeing her drunken husband and the slums of Casablanca; Aziz, who must leave behind his devoted wife in hope of securing work in Spain; and Faten, a student and religious fanatic whose faith is at odds with an influential man determined to destroy her future.
By: Laila Lalami
-
The Moor's Account
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this stunning work of historical fiction, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America--a Moroccan slave whose testimony was left out of the official record. In 1527 the conquistador Pnfilo de Narvez sailed from the port of Sanlcar de Barrameda with a crew of 600 men and nearly a hundred horses. His goal was to claim what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States for the Spanish crown and, in the process, become as wealthy and famous as Hernn Corts.
-
-
Terrific read evoking 16th century New World life
- By William on 11-04-15
By: Laila Lalami
-
Conditional Citizens
- On Belonging in America
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Laila Lalami
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to US citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of American rights, liberties, and protections.
-
-
Blew my mind!
- By Leila Jaafari on 10-20-20
By: Laila Lalami
-
The Dream Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo, Barton Caplan
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes.
-
-
The next parable of the sower
- By Jess on 03-18-25
By: Laila Lalami
-
The Darling
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Mary Beth Hurt
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Darling is Hannah Musgrave's story, told emotionally and convincingly years later by Hannah herself. A political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah has fled America to West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends and colleagues of Charles Taylor, the notorious warlord and now ex-president of Liberia. When Taylor leaves for the United States in an effort to escape embezzlement charges, he's immediately placed in prison.
-
-
Complex and compelling
- By Ellen H. Anderson on 02-05-05
By: Russell Banks
-
The Other Americans
- A Novel
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, P.J. Ochlan, Adenrele Ojo, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant—at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.
-
-
Don't bother - there are so many better stories
- By Robin Davis on 10-22-19
By: Laila Lalami
What listeners say about Secret Son
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- I used to fly
- 07-02-20
Loved This Story! I couldn’t put it down.
I learned about the amazing author Laila Lalami when I read a review of her earlier book “The Other Americans” in the LA Times. I was drawn to that book because I had spent some time in Morocco and the plot intrigued me. Plus I loved the beauty of the country and its rich culture. She writes and shows us about the challenges that people who are immigrants or victims of the class system and prejudices.
I looked forward to this book by her because of how impressed I was with her writing. Her next story “Secret Son” is just as compelling. Ms. Lalami is a magnificent teller of important stories.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Abby Mamacos
- 07-05-20
Ending catastrophically anticlimactic!
Slow start. Interesting and somewhat intriguing middle but then such an abrupt, ridiculous ending. Left me ice cold.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Steve
- 02-03-23
Intimate story of identity and family
Secret Son portrays the life of a young man in Casablanca slum trying to find his way. Caught between the stories of orphanhood and struggle his mother raised him on and the discovery of his real family, Youcef tries to understand who he is, versus the various roles that society asks him to play. He tries to navigate college, friendships, and life as a working man, all while balancing the opposing wishes of his family. Ultimately, his uncertainty leads him astray, and he must find a way out.
I enjoyed the multiple perspectives in this story, even in the way that some scenes were repeated to provide the interior emotional turmoil of two characters in opposite sides of a dialog. The abrupt ending and non-finality of any characters' stories were surprising, but fitting. The notions of Family, Identity, and Home don't have beginnings, middles, and ends. They are relationships an individual evolves over time that shape one's decisions and outlook, but rarely settle in one place.
Lalami captured the turmoil of family, of adolescence, and of despair amidst social stagnation in ways that many will be able to relate to. Great story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!