I read Danny Ramadan’s debut novel The Clothesline Swing back in 2019 and it was…fine. Now reading The Foghorn Echoes, it’s a joy to see how much the author’s writing has evolved! There were still a few ‘spoon-feeding’ passages, but overall I found this book to be engaging and moving!

Following a gut-wrenching start, the main body of the book switches back and forth between Vancouver and Syria. Hussam is living in Canada, free to live his life as openly gay man but haunted by the ghosts of the life he left behind in Syria. Wassim has remained in Damascus, where the war rages on and he seeks shelter among his own ghosts. The difference between the two settings is incredibly stark, but I think Ramadan manages to achieve a harmony between the two. I think I slightly preferred Hussam’s chapters, especially as he begins to shed some of his own prejudices and becomes more immersed in Vancouver’s drag scene. But I never found myself racing through Wassim’s chapters, they were just as engaging, though a hell of a lot sadder 😭 The insight of being gay in Syria and refugee camps in Turkey was bleak, although there is a glimmer of hope at the end.

Would recommend this one, a solid, emotional sophomore novel from an OwnVoices queer Syrian author!

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review!