Excerpt from You Should Pity Us Instead by Amy Gustine, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

R's mother spends the night in a hotel, and the next morning the young man at the front desk locates a driver to take her east. Two hundred and fifty miles on two-lane roads, her peripheral vision tainted by a head scarf. At one point the driver takes a dirt road that can't go anywhere good and R's mother thinks he's figured out who she is and plans to make short work of a troublesome Jewish mother, but it turns out to only be a clever shortcut. The driver returns to pavement and in another few miles looks over his shoulder. "You are Jew, no?" he asks in English.

She hesitates. "Yes."

He taps the dashboard. "I am Christian. The government, they kill my pigs, so I get this. They cannot kill a car, no?"

Many of the Christians in Egypt were pig farmers until the government slaughtered all the pigs to pacify Muslims worried about swine flu. R's mother understands the garbage now. The pigs used to eat it. She smiles sympathetically. "They can kill anything, but for now you have a very nice car."

Another few miles before the pig farmer asks why she is going to Rafah. "Not a good place for Jew."

R's mother considers whether to tell the truth. The Muslim government killed his Christian pigs. What are the chances she'll find a more trustworthy Egyptian?

When she admits where she really wants to go, he looks shocked, then nods and holds up her money. "You pay me twice this, I get you to somebody. Understand? I know nothing."

She affirms, "Nothing."

In Rafah the pig farmer deposits R's mother at one of the few open businesses, a market with red metal tables. The rest of the street is lined with chalky buildings leaning against one another. Most appear empty. The proprietor brings her a Sprite, staring at her a moment before going inside and shutting the door in a way that tells her she's not wanted. At the red table she sits bolt upright, half-expecting to be shot from a passing car. They pass only rarely. When they do, R's mother tightens the muscles around her spine. If she dies, she'd like to do it looking forward.

The pig farmer returns at dark and says he's found her a place to stay. "Tomorrow, the tunnels."

She offers an open hand of bills, and he selects five. "This is good."

They drive through streets edged in dirt mounds and concrete shards to a building with a green flag. A woman shows R's mother to a room with a white iron bed. That night she dreams of carrying R under a sky glittering with stars. When the earth opens up in a great zigzag crack, she drops him.

The next morning the woman brings her bread with a paste of mustard-flavored chicken and tells her a man is coming. R's mother nods. A man is always coming.

The pig farmer returns. "Why do you go to Gaza?"

"My son is in there."

The man asks who her son is.

She tells him.

There is a long pause. He repeats the name.

She nods.

He taps his temple. "You are not thinking."

"I know."

They sit awhile in silence until the man sighs. "Promise me you will not say his name. Tell them you have family, but make up a name. Do not tell them the real
name."

She nods again, and he hands her a bag with a thobe, slacks, and a white hijab.

"They will want to check you, understand? For safety." He pats down his own chest and sides to demonstrate.

He returns after dark with a flour sack. "For your eyes." She slips the sack over her head and submits to loosely bound wrists. They drive in what feels like circles for an hour before he helps her out of the car and unties her hands. They are in a home with pink floor tiles, a young man at the kitchen table. R's mother hands over more money. The pig farmer and the man debate something in heated undertones until the pig farmer sighs and comes over. While he runs his fingers over her sides, her thighs, and then briefly, barely touching, over her breasts and buttocks, he keeps repeating, "I am sorry, I am sorry."

Excerpted from You Should Pity Us Instead by Amy Gustine. Copyright © 2016 by Amy Gustine. Excerpted by permission of Sarabande Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.