Lifted by the great nothing

"At the center of this offbeat, big-hearted, and often dark world are a [Lebanese-American] son and his father trying to live normal lives by desperately keeping buried anything that identifies them as 'other.' With its poignant relationships, surprising love stories, and unsettling misadventures, [this book] is a ... portrait of a young man coming to terms with his country's--and his own--violent past"--