SUMMARY: Set in 2018 against the backdrop of an overcrowded, fetid refugee camp on the beautiful Greek island of Samos, The Good Deed follows the stories of four women living in the camp and an American tourist who comes to Samos to escape her own dark secret. When the tourist does a “good deed,” she triggers a crisis that brings her and the refugee women into a conflict that escalates dramatically as each character struggles for what she needs.
One of my favorite descriptions of the novel comes from Iranian author Dalia Sofer, who wrote the brilliant, Man of My Time. “A poignant, layered novel on displacement and belonging, love and betrayal, and the jagged space between altruism and egoism.”
THE BACK STORY: I decided to write The Good Deed in 2018, when I spent five weeks with refugees on the island of Samos, in Greece. I was so horrified by the conditions they lived amidst in this otherwise beautiful place — their camp was like a slum inside a prison — and yet so moved by the resilience and kindness of the people I met, that I felt compelled to write articles and a nonfiction book exposing their plight, and a novel doing the same in aneven deeper way.
WHY THIS TITLE?: The story basically turns the white savior trope inside-out, so the title is ironic but also literal.
WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? Because it’s a story about people’s courge in the face of hardship, a story about friendship, about love, and about lives very far from the experiences of many readers — lives we all need to understand better. But also because it’s sweeping, dramatic and sometimes funny book!