Too Soon

Arabella is thirty-five, a New York theatre director whose love life and career have both stalled. A new offer could change that: staging a daring, cross-dressing take on a Shakespeare classic in the West Bank, a production that might attract international attention.

Meanwhile her grandmother, Zoya, is scheming to pair her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet him, partly because her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, look headed for disaster. She and Aziz connect at once, which takes Zoya back to the passion she felt for Aziz's grandfather, a man she wanted desperately even after her father arranged for her to marry someone else.

The story also follows Zoya's youngest daughter, Naya, Arabella's mother. Zoya married her off at sixteen, when Naya dreamed of dating the Jackson 5 and was not ready to be a wife or a mother. Now her children are grown and she has reached a sudden midlife crossroads, and the time has come to settle old scores.