Synopses & Reviews
From the PEN USA Award-winning author of
A Country Called Home, a richly imagined new novel about a young woman who leaves the dusty farmland of 1960s Oklahoma to follow her husband to the oil fields of Saudi Arabia and finds a world of wealth, glamour, American privilege, and corruption.
Raised by her grandfather, a strict Methodist minister, in a two-room shack, Gin Mitchell secures a better, happier life for herself when she marries hometown hero Mason McPhee. But even her wildest dreams can't prepare her for the world she and Mason step into when he takes a job at the Arabian American Oil Company in Saudi Arabia. In the desert city of Abqaiq, Gin and Mason are given a house with marble floors, a houseboy to cook their meals, a gardener to tend the sandy patch out back — Gin suddenly has the life she's only read about. But when a young Bedouin woman is found dead in the bay, Gin's world closes in around her and the one person she trusts is nowhere to be found. Set in a gorgeously etched desert landscape, In the Kingdom of Men is an enthralling novel of greed and deceit, of Americans out of their depth in Saudi Arabia, and of a marriage moving inexorably toward ruin.
Review
"Addictive...Barnes's sweeping drama takes the reader on a captivating journey from rural Oklahoma to Saudi Arabia." Julia Edelstein, Real Simple
Review
"Barnes brings her own childhood struggles with a strict, isolating Pentecostalism to her enrapturing third novel about a tough, fearless Oklahoma girl raised with religious austerity and misogyny, who finds herself living in a luxurious yet oppressive American oil company enclave in 1970 in Saudi Arabia....Barnes animates a magnetizing cast of cosmopolitan characters, lingers over descriptions of food and clothing, dramatizes cultural contrasts and sexual tension, and brings this intense and compassionate novel of corporate imperialism, prejudice, corruption, and yearning to such gorgeously vivid, suspenseful life that the story's darkness is perfectly balanced by the keen wit and blazing pleasure of its telling. A veritable Mad Men of the desert, with the depth of a Graham Greene novel." Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
Review
"A swashbuckling, thrilling ride of a book, In The Kingdom of Men transports readers to the sands of Arabia and the recesses of the human heart. Ginny McPhee is a heroine unlike any other, negotiating love, politics, the intricacies of marriage, and the journey to selfhood. A vivid and compelling tale." Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Birds of Paradise
Review
"I was transfixed by Kim Barnes's thoughtful, elegant account of a young American woman's experience of 1960s Saudi Arabia. It describes a piece of the world that seems utterly fresh, never-written-about, and In the Kingdom of Men brings it to vivid life. This is a historical novel which is not only romantic and dramatic and compelling, but has particular, important relevance to our current age." Dan Chaon, author of Stay Awake and Await Your Reply
Review
"This is a mesmerizing novel, set in the American heartland and Saudi Arabia — two locations that on the face of it couldn't be more different. But from the point of view of a woman not allowed to be herself, the two places have startling similarities. We read, in part, to be taken elsewhere. In the Kingdom of Men succeeds mightily in this. We also read because we enjoy good writing. You'll find that in abundance here." Elizabeth Berg, author of Once Upon a Time, There Was You
Review
"A great windswept adventure full of tension and suspense, In the Kingdom of Men is moving in the truest sense, sweeping the reader along with its gorgeous prose, a rich setting, and most of all, Gin McPhee, one of those rare characters who sits up on page one, grabs you and pulls you into her world." Jess Walter, author of The Financial Lives of the Poets
Review
"This novel has it all: an intriguing story that thunders to a thrilling climax, characters who grab our hearts, gorgeous prose and a setting that stuns the reader at every turn. Arabia!" Ellen Sussman, author of French Lessons
Review
"If you want to understand, right in your gut, the history of the American relationship with Saudi Arabia; if you want a magical, layered story of west-inside-east, culture layered over culture, and the slow — still ongoing — revolution of gender and race oppression, In the Kingdom of Men is your book. It's Mad Men meets The Sheltering Sky, a Revolutionary Road for the oil-addicted. It's also an utter pleasure to read." Anthony Doerr, author of Memory Wall and About Grace
Synopsis
Here is the first thing you need to know about me: I’m a barefoot girl from red-dirt Oklahoma, and all the marble floors in the world will never change that.Here is the second thing: that young woman they pulled from the Arabian shore, her hair tangled with mangrove — my husband didn't kill her, not the way they say he did.
1967. Gin Mitchell knows a better life awaits her when she marries hometown hero Mason McPhee. Raised in a two-room shack by her Oklahoma grandfather, a strict Methodist minister, Gin never believed that someone like Mason, a handsome college boy, the pride of Shawnee, would look her way. And nothing can prepare her for the world she and Mason step into when he takes a job with the Arabian American Oil company in Saudi Arabia. In the gated compound of Abqaiq, Gin and Mason are given a home with marble floors, a houseboy to cook their meals, and a gardener to tend the sandy patch out back. Even among the veiled women and strict laws of shariah, Gin's life has become the stuff of fairy tales. She buys her first swimsuit, she pierces her ears, and Mason gives her a glittering diamond ring. But when a young Bedouin woman is found dead, washed up on the shores of the Persian Gulf, Gin's world closes in around her, and the one person she trusts is nowhere to be found.
Set against the gorgeously etched landscape of a country on the cusp of enormous change, In the Kingdom of Men abounds with sandstorms and locust swarms, shrimp peddlers, pearl divers, and Bedouin caravans — a luminous portrait of life in the desert. Award-winning author Kim Barnes weaves a mesmerizing, richly imagined tale of Americans out of their depth in Saudi Arabia, a marriage in peril, and one woman's quest for the truth, no matter what it might cost her.
About the Author
Kim Barnes is the author of two memoirs and two previous novels, including A Country Called Home, which received the 2009 PEN Center USA Literary Award in fiction and was named a best book of 2008 by The Washington Post, the Kansas City Star, and The Oregonian. She is the recipient of the PEN/Jerard Fund Award for an emerging woman writer of nonfiction, and her first memoir, In the Wilderness, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has appeared in a number of publications and anthologies, including The New York Times; MORE magazine; The Oprah Magazine; Good Housekeeping; Fourth Genre; The Georgia Review; Shenandoah; and the Pushcart Prize anthology. Barnes is a professor of writing at the University of Idaho and lives with her husband, the poet Robert Wrigley, on Moscow Mountain.