The Red Line

For sixteen years the red line has sliced through the heart of Nora's city. The young doctor grew up knowing that the virtual line cut Beirut into a Christian east side and a Muslim west side. She takes it for granted that no one on either side in this civil war can cross the red line, the boundary of tradition, morality, and even identity. Then the Muslim patient appears in the psychiatric ward who convinces her to do the unthinkable. She's caught up in a swirl of deceit and disillusion that takes her across the globe in her mad search for happiness, but she carries with her a cherished photograph of Beirut's ruins. Nora can't let go of the people and places from her secret past, and the past can't let go of her either. In fact, it's coming for revenge. Nora is the grown-up child of war, and her story—which is based on a real one—is the story of Beirut itself, a city divided, a city driven to self-destruction in a frenzy of passion, a city that got addicted to the bitter taste war left on its tongue.