1. What is your impression of Raja as a character? Did it change during the course of the book?

2. What is your impression of his mother? (refer to lines on p. 66)

3. Is Raja gullible? Are there other words that might get at something crucial to his character?

4. The word “true” is repeated in the title. Is there a question of untruth or deception in the book?

5. How do Raja’s and Nahed’s experiences of queerness differ? Why does Raja keep Nahed at a distance, and how does their dynamic evolve later in the novel?

6. What is the significance of the big dining table? What do the differing attitudes of Raja and his mother toward it reveal about their characters?

7. Insults and curses garner love and affection from their recipients (as reiterated on p. 307). How does this mode of communication endear characters to each other in the novel? Specifically, the retort “Fuck your mother” How does its usage, as well as its variations, evolve from the opening scenes to the ending?

8. While walking through Beirut after the port explosion, Raja recalls his long walk after emerging from underground decades earlier. Through these echoing journeys, what associations emerge for Raja?

9. What is the original context for Raja’s relationship to professionalism (work/life boundaries) that is revealed late in the novel? How is his commitment to being professional challenged in the concluding section?

10. When asked about humor in writing, Alameddine references the Arabic cultural concepts of “heavy blood” and “light blood.” He stresses he’s less concerned with being funny than light. In what way could this book be considered light?

11. How does the development of Raja and Boodie’s relationship over two months underground compare to Raja’s assessment of it at the end of the chapter (p. 215)? How is this response further complicated later in the novel?