“In the early 2000s, the go-to destination for the Western media in Gaza was the Al Deira Hotel, opened during the brief period of optimism that followed the Oslo Accords. An Ottoman-style palace by the sea, the establishment offered a five-star refuge from the missile and drone strikes just outside its walls. During one reporting trip to Gaza in April 2004, I shuttled from the scene of a targeted assassination—mangled car, remains of a Hamas leader—to Al Deira’s beachfront restaurant, where I dined on hummus and fresh shrimp as the sun set over the Mediterranean.
Phoebe Greenwood’s novel, Vulture, conjures up this world with mordant humor and breathtaking immediacy. A Jerusalem-based stringer for British newspapers between 2010 and 2013, and later an editor and correspondent for The Guardian, Greenwood sets much of her story at a Gaza City hotel called the Beach, an unmistakable stand-in for Al Deira.”
Read the full review in The New York Times Book Review.
