The Belly Dancer in the Barrel of Oil

Cover

Title The Belly Dancer in the Barrel of Oil

Author Rebecca Newman

ISBN 0-87212-177-1

Publisher Libra Publishers, Inc.

Category Fiction

Shira's Rating (on a scale of 0 to 5)

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What It's About

The lead character in this book is a young woman who keeps getting mixed up with the wrong kind of man. After her worthless husband abandons her and her young children, she accepts a job as a belly dancer in a club owned by a slimeball who makes frequent sexual advances at her. She dodges them adroitly, but eventually reaches a point where she can't take it any more. Next she runs off to Cairo to take a job dancing in a club there, accumulating money to send home to her grandmother and children. Club life is manageable, but true to her bad luck it comes to an end and she winds up in the harem of a rich Sultan. For a time, she manages to get by there without compromising herself, but eventually that too comes to an end and she seeks refuge with a terrorist.

Its Good Points

The author's writing style is humorous and fun to read. The sassy personality of the main character is fun. Although the main character continuously entangles herself with the wrong kind of man, it's easy to appreciate the quick thinking and courage that she uses to save herself from each scrape.

On The Negative Side....

I didn't care for the portrayal of belly dancing as a sleazy, bottom-of-the-social-structure profession. I realize that's the reality of it in Egypt, but this book portrays it that way even in the U.S., in southern California. The book was published in the mid-1980's, at a time when many belly dancers in southern California were performing in perfectly respectable settings.

The cultural references are peppered with errors. It appears the author had some superficial knowledge, but was lacking real understanding. For example, the book refers to the main character seeing a mummy in the pyramids of Giza, but there were never mummies in those pyramids. Following her first 5 nights of performing at a club in Cairo, the main character finds herself at a feast to mark the end of the month of Ramadan - a cultural error, because during Ramadan the clubs in Cairo don't have Oriental dance performances.

In Conclusion

This is an okay book, but not great. The humorous writing style made it fun to read, but I didn't appreciate the portrayal of belly dancing as a sleazy profession. The ethnic references to the Middle East were also off the mark. If you want to read a book about a woman's man trouble, you may enjoy this one. But if you want to read a book about a belly dancer, Baby Love by Louisa Young is more appealing and better researched. (But U.S. readers would need to order it from Amazon.co.uk because it's not available in the U.S.)