
Destination: Jordan
Book: Staircase of A Thousand Steps by Masha Hamilton
I am looking in my travel library for books to share with you that I have read that made me yearn to travel. Not travel literature by strict definition, but sometimes historical novels bring a traditional culture so vividly to life that I want to visit the country today and see how those traditions influence the present.
Masha Hamilton was working on this novel, her first, when we briefly belonged to the same Tucson writer’s group, exchanging drafts and bemoaning the frustrations of attempting to clearly express something that seemed vivid in the mind, but resisted being put on paper.
Masha is a world traveler and has developed into a respected writer, and if some day she decides to put her own life on paper, I will avidly read about her experience as a journalist in the Mideast and in Russia. Meanwhile, I will enjoy her novels, informed by her lengthy visits to foreign places, and her finely honed powers of observation.
Staircase of a Thousand Steps
tells the story of the people of a village in Trans Jordan before the 1967 war with Israel. We meet Harif who tells stories and is distrusted by the villagers and Harif’s granddaughter, Jammana, a modern American girl who learns deep meanings from age-old traditions.
Faridah the midwife stands for a break with tradition and the rights of women. As they struggle with old enmities within their village, and more lethal ones within the larger Mediterranean, we also see a people working their way into a modern world that doesn’t quite fit.
We learn from the sharply observant Masha Hamilton, how their homes look, what they eat, how they speak to each other. And the story teller weaves their stories in poetic prose.
It is a book to inspire the urge to seek out new cultures. It is a book to read again and again. Although when I visited Israel, I crossed the Allenby bridge briefly into Jordan, I have yet to visit the part of Jordan and Lebanon and Syria that I would love to see in person. Meanwhile, I’ll hang on to this book to fuel my travel dreams.
Masha Hamilton has written three other books since Staircase of a Thousand Steps.
- The Distance Between Us, (2004) Unbridled Books, Another novel set in the Mideast.
- The Camel Bookmobile, (2007) Harper Collins, about a bookmobile in Africa.
And her latest, officially released in September 2009, 31 Hours
. The new novel departs from the tone of earlier books as it tells the terrifying tale of a young man who is headed toward an act of terror.