Essay Questions

Why set “The Spiced Chicken Queen of Mickaweaquah, Iowa” at the exact week of the 9/11 attacks?

The parallel between the fictional events of this story and the historical events of the attacks of September 11, 2001, are impossible to separate. It is not going too far to suggest that without the history there could be no fiction. Or, rather, the fiction could exist, but it would be almost impossible for Americans to understand it. This is a story about Muslims that absolutely depends upon the American perspective toward the hijackings as a sneak attack. Mzayyan is portrayed as a timid victim of domestic abuse who has been driven to the edge and so devises a sneak attack upon her abuser to take full advantage of the zenith of American paranoia about Muslim. He gets deported and she becomes the titular royalty. But the story is also a sneak attack on readers with a propensity to lay full blame upon the Islamic extremism on the perpetrators. Ultimately, the reader is left to ponder just how deeply the connection here should go. Or, in other words, is it just the abusive husband who should be compared to the 9/11 hijackers, or the abused wife as well? And if so, what does that say?

In “The Girl from Mecca,” what is the story’s driving mechanism?

That this story will be driven by a sense of irony is made apparent by its second paragraph. The title is immediately revealed to be misleading. Mecca is, of course, the city in Saudi Arabia made famous by the millions who make pilgrimages there to pray, causing the population to triple almost overnight every year. So, it is only natural to assume that Mecca in the title is this most famous city bearing that name. The reader quickly learns that the girl in question is from Mecca, Indiana, however. And she “needs assistance.” That irony raises its dark face once again by casting a pall over the girl from Mecca being a needy young thing. In fact, she doesn’t appear to need any help at all in getting by. As the story plays out, irony becomes not just the engine driving the narrative, but the whole point of the story as politics are pitted against religious tenets to force a reappraisal of exactly where one of these aspects of social interaction ends and the other begins.

What adage expressed through a short but wildly popular tune sung on The Simpsons does “Manar of Hama” prove untrue?

In one of the most all-time beloved episodes of The Simpsons, Lisa—in the midst of choosing to become a vegetarian—asks her father if it would be possible to throw a party in which meat isn’t served as the centerpiece of the meal. To which Homer Simpson replies that he is throwing the party to impress people, and “you don’t win friends with salad.” Therein erupts a brief but memorable conga tune with the lyrics consisting entirely of that advice. It has since become a popular internet meme to describe any situation in which you don’t do something unpopular if you are looking to become popular. The idea that you don’t win friends with salad, however, is more complex than it seems. Because it is only true if you are looking to make a connection with like-minded people. In this story, Manar is not even really looking to make a connection with anybody, but is nevertheless inexorably drawn into short-term interaction with a group of hippies with whom she is decidedly not like-minded, and with whom shares nothing in common. Except, that is, for the hummus, tandoori bread, tomatoes and lettuce they offer. Her observation almost feels like a direct rejection of Homer’s advisory: “I guess there is no danger in salad.”