A review by seebrandyread
Alligator and other stories by Dima Alzayat

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Originally born in Syria then growing up in the US, Dima Alzayat pulls from her own identities as a Syrian immigrant woman to give us stories in Alligator that explore one or several of these identifiers in both the past and present. She focuses especially on time, history, and the connection between generations to ask questions of inheritance and familial myths and constructs and what change looks like if it’s happening at all. Her stories dig into loss through death or distance. Characters mourn a lack of physical presence, but more importantly they mourn the loss of narrative, the stories that get cut short or are never told, stories that might help those left behind understand their own selves better. Wrapped up in these stories is memory. Sometimes stories are all we have to pass down because they can’t be taken away, lost, or destroyed like a photo or house or keepsake can be. Several of Alzayat’s stories play with form and perspective in ways that are sometimes subtle, sometimes bold. “Alligator” does both by alternating between different characters’ accounts that appear as plain, normal text, social media posts, correspondence, and various historical records, usually newspaper clippings or court transcripts, some of which are real. This collection does the two most important things in fiction: it tells interesting stories and tells them in interesting ways, ways that challenge the reader and story itself. Alzayat finds the human whether she’s writing about 9/11 or #MeToo, and the honest and human will always outlast time.