As Rich as the King in Casablanca

Seven cents June 16 2024

1. Hate it. The double-stacked vertical piles. My fault. I did it to myself. So I couldn't find "This Strange Eventful History" by Claire Messud.

2. Fortunately, I had another book!

3. "Gossip Girl in Casablanca," said the Times of London. Sold. I sped through Abigail Assour's debut novel like a motorcycle in Morocco, I guess. It won the Francoise Sagan award, and like in Sagan, sex happens, but not in detail, not right on the page.

4. Is that how you say it? When it's a movie, you say, "off-screen." Do we say "off-page?"

5. A patron asked if it was a rom-com. "No, it's neither romantic nor comedic, really. What would I call it?" So I looked up the novel Vanity Fair: A domestic drama.That's Francoise Sagan, too: dom-dram.

6. It's an off-page dom-dram that ends just after Ramadan. A couple of characters fantasize about moving to America. But what they don't know is that at that very moment, as the last period concludes the domestic drama's last second, "I Saw the Sign" by Ace of Bass is about to be knocked off America's Top Forty by "Bump n' Grind" by R. Kelly.

7. So be careful what you wish for, characters! It's like "a tragedy with a happy ending," but the ending happens, you know, off-page.

As Rich as the King in Casablanca

(Aussi Riche que le Roi by Abigail Assor, trans. Natasha Lehrer)