Mother East, Daughter West

About the Book

Twenty-year-old Monique has grown up in Boston, the daughter of a Lebanese mother and an American father who never wanted her. Now after being absent for nearly her entire life, Dennis is traveling from the Middle East to visit his wife, Marcelle, and Monica. But returning to his family will not be as easy as he thinks. Monique, a virgin who has witnessed her mother clinging to a dead marriage for years, resents him.

As Monique learns secrets from her father’s past and attempts to move past her bitterness, Dennis makes an effort to heal their relationship by taking her to New York, Washington, and then on a luxurious Italian ship to several international destinations that include Barcelona, Marseilles, and Venice. But when an unexpected bombshell occurs between father and daughter just before they arrive in war-torn Lebanon, everything changes as a chain of events leads the family in a new direction where it becomes exceedingly difficult to distinguish between obsession and love and nothing is certain, especially life.

Mother East, Daughter West shares the tale of a tumultuous relationship between an American father and his half-Lebanese daughter as their lives intersect after twenty years apart.

About the Author

John Livingston is currently a professor of Islamic History and Civilization and Modern Middle East History at William Paterson University. He has published articles in leading Muslim Studies journals, penned a novel, and has written two books soon to be published by Ashgate Press. He works and lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he continues to write.