Only his devout wife Amina, although also aging and still grieving for her son, seems to be stalwart amidst the tumult in the country and disappointment in her family. Each character has his or her own personal drama and is challenged as to how to manage it against a backdrop of temptations and politics.
The story in this second book ends with Ahmad Abd Al-Jawad realizing that owing to his life long habit of wine, women, and song, he must guard his health in whatever time he has left. Both sons come to know of their father’s secret double life and seem doomed to emulate it. PALACE OF DESIRE Kirkus Reviews The second volume of Nobel laureate Mahfouz's marvelous Cairo trilogy, first published in Arabic in 1956, picks up the family saga of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad five years after the killing of his son Fahmy by British troops in Palace Walk. Kamal attends Teachers College and after an unrequited love attraction, his disappointment and disillusionment drive him to become an atheist. Yasin stoops so low as to disgrace his family by taking up with an unsuitable woman and marrying her. Aisha is also the target of Khadija’s wrath for not supporting her against her mother-in-law and after losing her family to typhoid, moves in with her parents. Khadija is so quarrelsome with her mother-in-law that she appeals to him to step in and discipline his daughter.
Each of Ahmad Abd Al-Jawad’s children disappoints him in some way.
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