The Wrong End of the Telescope is a novel first published in 2021 by Rabih Alameddine. The book presents the tale of Mina Simpson whose identity is not easily summarized. She is a Lebanese-American. She is a middle-aged transgender female. She is a physician in Chicago heading to the island of Lesbos to assist with the Syrian refugee crisis. Her story plays out in episodic fashion rather than being a tightly contained plot-driven narrative.
Mina crosses paths with many refugees from the Middle East region but it is a matriarch named Sumaiya trying to keep her terminal cancer a secret from her family who makes the strongest impression upon her. Their bond is made especially unique when Sumaiya’s young son questions Mina’s gender and her confession to being transgender is greeted without any of the usual negativity. This rection is explained by the story Sumaiya tells about living in a village with only one doctor who, since he was male, is not allowed to treat female patients. He gets around this legal problem with a solution that strikes Mina where she lives: the doctor dresses as a woman and then returns to each home to treat the females.
The focus on this anecdote specifically and the concept of living as a refugee more comprehensively allows the novel to explore themes related to questions of identity. A subject which has obviously been of significance to Mina her whole life. The very idea of writing a novel about a humanitarian crisis with a transgender character at its center is inspired considering that the trans community must daily face questions of the existence of humanitarian impulses within the population at large.
Even more inspired is another ploy the author engages to deepen the exploration of identity. Alameddine introduces himself as an important character in the novel early on when Mina writes to him “You insisted I write the refugee story, as well as your story and mine.” Thus the book transforms into a story told by the author but actually written by a character who takes on the task because Alameddine “tried writing the refugee story. Many times, many different ways. You failed.” This unusual structural component becomes the key to understanding the thematic presentation.
The latter half of the novel moves away from its focus on the refugees in crisis and develops into a more loosely constructed interior explorations about why Alameddine does not feel he can write a story about refugees without the necessity of an intermediary accessory like Mina. Just as the people forced to move from their homeland become refugees feeling discomfort in unfamiliar surroundings before establishing an identity beyond that of refugee, so is the author moving out of a place of comfort into an unfamiliar setting with which he feels discomfort.
