Naeem Murr- Every Exit Brings You Home

In this multidimensional masterpiece, the conflicts, joys, griefs, passions and hopes of diverse immigrant homeowners in a Chicago condominium come to represent the wounded world we all must share.

Jamal “Jack” Shaban is trying to save his neighbors’ debt-ridden homes. But who is Jack, really? His flight attendant colleagues assume he’s gay, while he hides his crush on his best friend, a bawdy Midwestern stewardess. At home, Jack and his traditional Muslim wife, Dimra, are desperate to have a child to heal the wounds of their traumatic pasts in 1980s Gaza. When an angry single mom moves into the condo, that past will bubble up again – revealing the scandalous loves that forced Jack and Dimra into exile.

The lives of Jack’s immigrant neighbors fill out a vivid tapestry of love and loss. Like them, Jack is laboring to birth hope from devastation; with them, his world grows ever richer, as an extraordinary generosity of spirit drives this novel’s profusion of characters and personal reckonings.

Liar, adulterer, devoted husband, community leader, saint, sinner, survivor: Jack’s contradictions make him one of the standout literary characters of our time. With its portrayal of blasted hopes and indomitable commitment to new beginnings, Every Exit Brings You Home is a necessary novel for right now.

Naeem Murr, a dual US and UK citizen, is the author of four novels: The Boy, a New York Times Notable Book; The Genius of the Sea; The Perfect Man, which was awarded The Commonwealth Writersʼ Prize for the Best Book of Europe and South Asia, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize; and Every Exit Brings You Home, which was published by W.W. Norton in 2026. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, among his awards are a Pushcart Prize, a Lannan Residency Fellowship, a PEN Beyond Margins Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Chicago and teaches at Northwestern University.

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