Hey, it's NPR's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Betty Shemia started working on her novel

too soon about 10 years ago. It's a funny and sexy novel about three generations of Palestinian women,

one of whom gets set up with a man who is a medic in Gaza. Of course, as Shemia points out in this

interview with NPR's Ping Huang,

the Gaza of today is very different from the Gaza of 10 years ago. But she says,

that doesn't mean Palestinian women can't be funny or sexy or even kind of crappy to each other

just because there's a war going on. They are human, after all. More after the break.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky

conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR

reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Betty Shemia is the author of 15 plays, but when she sat down to write her first book,

she set out to create something really different, what she calls a Palestinian-American sex in the city. The result is her debut novel, too soon. It's a funny,

sexy romance novel about women falling for the wrong men. The book follows three generations

of Palestinian-American women, and their lives echo each other, even as they're shaped by the

different times in which they lived.

It also is elements of a tragedy written as a comedy.

Betty Shamiah joins us now to talk more about it.

Welcome to the show, Betty.

Thank you.

So Betty, I love a good love triangle.

And your main character, a woman named Arabella, finds herself drawn to two very different men.

...