Beirut Hellfire Society

A Novel

By: Rawi Hage

Narrated by: Neil Shah

On a ravaged street overlooking a cemetery in Beirut's Christian enclave, we meet an eccentric young man named Pavlov, the son of a local undertaker. When his father meets a sudden and untimely death, Pavlov is approached by a colorful member of the mysterious Hellfire Society - an anti-religious sect that, among many rebellious and often salacious activities, arranges secret burial for outcasts who have been denied last rites because of their religion or sexuality.

Pavlov agrees to take on his father's work for the society, and over the course of the novel he becomes a survivor-chronicler of his embattled and fading community at the heart of Lebanon's civil war. His new role introduces him to an unconventional cast of characters, including a father searching for his son's body, a mysterious woman who takes up residence on Pavlov's stairs after a bombing, and the flamboyant head of the Hellfire Society, El-Marquis.

Deftly combining comedy with tragedy, gritty reality with surreal absurdity, Beirut Hellfire Society asks: What, after all, can be preserved in the face of certain change and imminent death? The answer is at once propulsive, elegiac, outrageous, profane, and transcendent - and a profoundly moving fable on what it means to live through war.

©2018 Rawi Hage (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Some characters are unforgettable

The writing is fantastic and some of the personalities in the storyline will stay with you. A phenomenal depiction of the most heartbreaking and meaningless war that stole the lives of generations.

Extraordinarily Beautiful

Great in depicting the trauma of the Lebanese and their sufferings in war. Loved it.

Debauchery

The author has created the most vulgar characters in modern literature. There is so much debauchery in this novel, it is a small reprieve when the author, rather infrequently, shifts focus to the brutality of war.