The Kingdom's Sandcastle

April 5, 2021
After attending college in California for less than two months, Louie, the narrator of Qubain’s sobering debut, returns home to the Kingdom, a country in the Middle East, because his uncle, who’s jealous of his academic success, has spread false rumors that he’s a drug addict. When Louie’s mother dies of a heart attack soon after his arrival, he loses the one family member who knew he was a closeted gay man and accepted him as such. As Louie struggles to stay emotionally afloat, he becomes involved with John, an older man who gets him addicted to Valium and Xanax. When Louie tries to break up with John, John threatens to give a compromising videotape of the two of them he secretly made to Louie’s family unless Louie agrees to stay with him. Fearing he’ll be disowned by his family if he’s outed, Louie winds up in effect John’s sex slave. Potential salvation comes in the form of Adam, a visiting American, and with Adam’s help Louie plots to escape John and the Kingdom. The tense cat-and-mouse game between Louie and John builds to a cliff-hanger ending. Readers will have to await the promised sequel to see how the many loose ends are resolved. This works better as the harrowing tale of a gay man fighting against a repressive society than a thriller.