"The Girls of Riyadh"

Apparently, there is a new coffee table book by a female author in Saudi Arabia:

Gay teen-agers, predatory lesbians, women drinking alcohol at weddings, husbands with unsavory sexual demands.

With characters like that, "The Girls of Riyadh" is not your run-of-the-mill depiction of life in Muslim Saudi Arabia, one of the world's most restricted and conservative societies.

Though technically banned here, Rajaa al-Sanie's frank and sometimes shocking insight into the closed world of Saudi women is making waves four months after its publication in Beirut.

Local press commentators have asked the young Saudi to disown the book for besmirching women in the conservative kingdom and interviewers on Saudi-owned satellite channels have accused her of portraying its men as boorish bores.

But many young people using popular Internet chat rooms have praised Sanie's debut novel for its honesty. Prominent writers have lauded the work as part of a new trend which, through focusing on the psychology of the individual, suggests that human needs come above the demands of society and religion.

...In one passage, one of the four girls returns from Los Angeles to find that "love in her country is treated like an out-of-place joke that you can have fun with for a while, before it's removed from circulation by higher authorities."

One girl allows herself to get close to a Shi'ite, despite urban myths that say members of this minority sect spit on food before offering it to Sunni Muslims.

During a meeting in a cafe, the two are hauled off by the notorious Saudi moral police. "Poor Ali, he was a nice guy, to be honest. If only he hadn't been Shi'ite, she could have loved him," comments the novel's narrator.

In an early scene, women drink at a society wedding "since it deserved a bottle of Dom Perignon." In another chapter, an effeminate teen-ager is beaten by a father ashamed of his homosexuality.

And when one of the main characters closes her eyes and prepares herself for what is meant to be her first night of wedded bliss, she is shocked to find her husband "doing what she never imagined." She hits him, and the marriage is over.

The text is peppered with references to popular culture, including a song by a Saudi singer which gives the novel its title, as well as verses from the Koran, in what Sanie says is a reflection of the diverse influences on young people.

"She's your Queen-to-be.
A Queen-to-be forever.
A Queen who'll do whatever his highness desires.
She's your Queen-to-be.
A vision of perfection.
An object of affection to quench your royal fire.
Completely free from infection.
To be used at your discretion.
Waiting only for your direction.
Your Queen-to-beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."