Behind the Story: Barâa Arar on “The Dentist’s Son”

“The Dentist’s Son” came to Barâa Arar while she was vacationing with her husband in Prince Edward County, Ontario. He asked her, offhandedly, what life would look like for “people like us.” “He meant us as young people,” Arar explains, “but also as Muslims born and raised in Canadian cities with sizable immigrant communities.” From this, Arar began to write a scene on her phone, composed entirely of dialogue, between two Muslim characters. This developed into the story of a young man returning to his hometown following the death of his mother, who—amid a crisis of faith—encounters a woman he used to know. I was initially drawn to the story by its voice: quiet and melancholic, but remarkably self-possessed. What stayed with me, though, was its tender and complicated exploration of faith: how we come to it, the different ways we inhabit it, and how grief can both rupture and remake our relationship to it.

– Saleem Haddad, Fiction Editor

Read “The Dentist’s Son” here.

SALEEM HADDAD for TMR: In “The Dentist’s Son,” the narrator returns to faith after a crisis, then loses some of his certainty after his mother’s death. The story begins in the aftermath of that loss. What interested you about the movement from faith as a source of answers towards faith as something that can accommodate uncertainty?

BARÂA ARAR: I was raised in a family where faith and critical thinking were not mutually exclusive. That sometimes meant my questions elicited discomfort from my broader community that was feeling fragile and insecure under post-9/11 scrutiny. When we’re afraid and uncertain, we want something to hold on to, a singular answer to our problems. We want something or even someone to say, “this is the way to be. This will save us.” That can work for some people but it didn’t work for me. I think faith and our relationship to religion is more dynamic. Questions and uncertainty are not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign you care enough to contend with a tradition and a force beyond yourself.  

TMR: Maryam repeatedly resists the narrator’s attempts to perceive and define her. What drew you to this dynamic?

BA: I’ve worn hijab for twenty years and being perceived in it has not gotten easier. Hijab is so loaded with meaning both from outside and inside my community. It’s deeply personal yet everyone seems to have an opinion about it. Those expectations creep into how you see yourself and can leave you defining yourself in relation to them. I wanted to explore how that plays out on an inter-personal level but also wanted to show how a Muslim woman can choose to wear hijab, have questions or even resentments about those expectations, but continue to resist the narratives and expectations placed on her.  

TMR: The narrator and Maryam seem to want almost opposite things from community: he longs for a sense of belonging that he feels he was denied, while she has experienced community as something that can constrain and define her. What interested you about putting these two desires in conversation with one another?

BA: I am interested in what we lose, or are willing to deny to ourselves, when we seek belonging to a group. And that’s not just a person with a minoritized identity trying to belong to the dominant culture, but also someone trying to belong within the subcultures that form around hyphenated identity. I am not very good at being a “joiner” because I am very stubborn and I refuse to hide parts of myself and my opinions to feel totally included. So, I think I accidentally personified that internal dilemma in these two characters. What is the cost of entry to community? When can it save us and when can it feel stifling?   

I am interested in what we lose, or are willing to deny to ourselves, when we seek belonging to a group.

TMR: Maryam is writing a novel about abuse within a Muslim community, and the narrator initially objects that it confirms what outsiders already think about Muslims. Why did you want to put this particular argument about representation inside the story?

BA: At first, I hesitated to put this detail in the story because it comes with a heavy responsibility. I still feel conflicted because it deals with the more fundamental question: “Who is my writing for?” Is it to appease the dominant western narrative about Muslims as people to fear? Or is it to challenge my own community to think about these things critically and to build spaces where we can all be safe and well, spiritually, physically, and mentally? Of course, I hope it’s the latter. If my mission is to write stories about the communities I belong to, then I have to be honest about the beauty and the pain.

TMR: One of the first things that drew me to the story was its sense of place, and the characters’ complex relationships to Prince Edward County. How important was the landscape to the story?  

BA: I am interested in how land and place inform our relationships and sense of self. Do we inherit a sense of belonging to a particular place? And what are the forces trying to sever our relationship to the land? I first had these questions visiting Tunisia, my mother’s birthplace, where I didn’t expect to feel such a strong sense of connection. Despite the chaos and the newness, I thought: I can see myself here. I still feel such a longing to visit Syria, my father’s birthplace.

Prince Edward County was a place I long associated as a vacation spot for upper-middle class white Canadians. Then, by chance, I visited three times in the span of eighteen months. I came to learn its history as the traditional territory of the Wendat (Huron) and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) who have lived there for over 8,000 years and have been stewards of its land and waterways. The land is undeniably beautiful, which I try to show in the story, but it also carries scars of the genocide committed against Indigenous people. Aside from my personal notes, I researched the regional flora and fauna and tried to incorporate how being in that environment can feel freeing and invigorating to my characters.

If my mission is to write stories about the communities I belong to, then I have to be honest about the beauty and the pain.

TMR: A key theme that emerges in the story is reclamation and inheritance. What interested you about faith as something that can be lost and then reconstructed—not just within an individual, but across generations?

BA: We’re living in disturbed times that force us to define ourselves in clear terms. One way we might do this is looking back to our familial and cultural history, especially if we’re displaced from our ancestral lands. What languages did our ancestors speak? What faith tradition did they belong to? What foods did they cook or clothes did they wear?  

While we may not get all of that back, faith can be reclaimed and reimagined for the now. One of the scenes in the stories takes place in a mosque in Trenton, Ontario. Like many mosques in Canada, it’s in a former church. I wanted to illustrate how faith has an enduring and universal component and how when we are re-building lives elsewhere, we may search for the sacred and the spiritual to give us a sense of familiarity and continuity. This of course defies the assumption of the western world, which I strongly resist, that being anti-religion is a sign of great progress and freedom. Questioning what came before us does not mean we have to abandon it.