Description

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A vivid love letter to the 1980s and one woman’s struggle to overcome the challenges of immigration.

It’s 1986, and Muna Heddad is in a bind. She and her son have moved to Montreal, leaving behind a civil war filled with bad memories in Lebanon. She had plans to find work as a French teacher, but no one in Quebec trusts her to teach the language. She needs to start making money, and fast. The only work Muna can find is at a weight-loss center as a hotline operator.

All day, she takes calls from people responding to ads seen in magazines or on TV. On the phone, she’s Mona, and she’s quite good at listening. These strangers all have so much to say once someone shows interest in them—marriages gone bad, parents dying, isolation, personal inadequacies. Even as her daily life in Canada is filled with invisible barriers at every turn, at the office Muna is privy to her clients’ deepest secrets.

Dimitri Nasrallah has written a vivid elegy to the 1980s, the years he first moved to Canada, bringing the era’s systemic challenges into the current moment through this deeply endearing portrait of struggle, perseverance, and bonding.

About the Author

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Dimitri Nasrallah is the author of four novels, including Hotline, a Canadian bestseller that was long-listed for the 2022 Giller Prize and was a 2023 finalist for Canada Reads. Nasrallah was born in Lebanon in 1977, during the country’s civil war, and moved to Canada in 1988. His previous books include The Bleeds (2018); Niko (2011), which won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction; and Blackbodying (2005), which won Quebec’s McAuslan First Book Prize. His books have also been nominated for the Dublin Literary Award and the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal. Nasrallah lives in Montreal, where he is the editor of Esplanade Books and teaches creative writing at Concordia University.

Praise For…

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“Spectacular...Few novels have captured with such quiet, precise subtlety the interplay between isolation and connection that so often dominates the life of a new immigrant...Nasrallah is one of my favorite writers working today, an exceptional talent who deserves to be much more widely read.” —Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise and American War

“A heartwarming story...It’s the interiority of the mother that really makes the novel shine...We so often ascribe masculine qualities to bravery and survival. The courage it takes to build a simple life as a single mother all alone in a new world, is revealed to be delicate and feminine and caring and sweet.” —Heather O’Neill, author of When We Lost Out Heads