Sunday, September 16, 2007

"THE SANCTUARY, by Raymond Khoury". It is good to see that Raymond is doing well as a novelist. Raymond (I used to annoy him by pronouncing his name in the French way) was my classmate and we shared a love of arts, cartoons, and cologne. He introduced me to Jovan. I also used to mock Raymond for lacking the skill to tell a joke. But Raymond frustrated me: he was one of those Lebanese in my "elite" private high school that the New York Times described once as "misplaced Westerners." He did not know much about the Middle East, and spoke Arabic with an accent. He was more interested in the US than in any other place although he now incorporates Middle East themes in his novels, I am told. I have not seen Raymond since college days when I studied political science and he studied architecture. I don't know why he mentions on his website that he was evacuated by the Marines from Beirut in 1984?