The Coin

Praise For This Book

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A Bookshop & Goodreads Editors' Pick
Time, A Must-Read Book of the Year
Amazon, A Best Debut Fiction Book of the Year

Named a Best Book by The New Yorker, People, Time, GQ, Vulture, New York Post, Elle, & Publishers Weekly

Named a Most Anticipated Book by The Seattle Times, Vulture, Marie Claire, Ms., Bookshop, Literary Hub, The Millions, & Electric Literature

"[A] smart, sneering novel of capital and its consequences . . . In a spiraling, hallucinogenic plot, The Coin draws a dotted line between the narrator’s grandmother’s garden in Palestine and a splatter of excrement on New York City subway tiles; between her grandfather’s birthplace of Bisan—'now a low-income town in Israel, housing mostly Jewish families from Morocco and no Palestinians'—Stokely Carmichael and a Gucci window display appropriating the language of revolution . . . The whiplash feels intentional, funny in an absurdist way, like the narrator’s existential seesawing between jaded American consumerism and the sadness and guilt of displacement . . . The novel’s power is not in cohesion, but in chaos." —Lauren Christensen, The New York Times Book Review

"[A] sharp and disarming debut novel . . . Zaher is expert at crisp turns of phrase that reveal how brittle her narrator is . . . A sturdy novel about an unsteady person is no small feat, and Zaher’s prose is remarkably controlled." —Mark Athitakis, The Washington Post

"Birkin-bag economics meets colorism and racism and feminism and more—it’s beyond intersectionality—in Zaher’s stunning and surreal debut novel of a young Palestinian woman who lives and teaches in New York City." —Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times

"[An] unusual, powerful novel . . . Zaher captures the suffocating pain of isolation and loneliness in a manner that feels chillingly universal." —Connie Ogle, The Star Tribune

"One of 2024’s most fascinating debuts, at once chaotic and razor sharp . . . I can’t wait to read whatever Zaher writes next." —The Independent, Best Fiction Books of the Year

"Enthralling . . . This fearless quest for identity results in a bold, brash novel written with notable assurance and flair . . . Zaher’s singular style gives shape and structure to the zany story of an elementary schoolteacher who becomes obsessively preoccupied with cleaning, both herself and her environment, as a way to manage trauma . . . Mad and brilliant." —Sarah Gilmartin, The Irish Times

"[I]n a society as unjust as this one, even acts of morality are tarnished with grime. As with the coin lodged in the narrator’s back—a smart metaphor for inherited trauma and the currency of power—no matter how hard you scrub, you can never get clean." —Bekah Waalkes, The Atlantic

"A hypnotic portrait of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown." —Shannon Carlin, Time

"Surreal, and willing to risk a little provocation, Zaher’s book plays with overlapping ideas of privilege, asking complex questions about what past suffering means in the face of a desire for today’s luxuries." —The New Yorker

"The Coin feels like a distinctly Palestinian novel—concerning itself, as it does, with its narrator’s statelessness and increasing sense of isolation . . . Zaher’s book also does the vital work of reminding the reader that there is no single story to be told about any group of people in any part of the world. Zaher’s protagonist struggles under the weight of immense trauma, yes, but she’s also a fashionista, an obsessor, and an educator doing her (sometimes-flawed) best to impart wisdom. In other words, she’s a human being full of complexities and contradictions, and spending time in her world is both dizzying and delightful." —Emma Specter, Vogue

"[A] hypnotic debut." —Keziah Weir, Vanity Fair

"A page-turning delight." —People

"With themes of embodiment, class, gender, loneliness and more, this is a striking debut. Read it, and then go back to read it again." —Karla J. Strand, Ms.

"In her debut novel, Zaher draws a Venn diagram of the glamorously neurotic and the politically oppressed, then sets her protagonist spinning in that maddening little overlap." —Madeline Leung Coleman, Vulture

"Stories about women spiraling out in New York aren’t exactly hard to come by, but with The Coin, Zaher fashions a narrative in this vein that’s undeniably fresh." —Chloe Joe, Bustle

"Stripped of the traditional conventions of character, Zaher’s narrator is a spirit possessed by surfaces: a free­-floating shade clad in designer goods, porous as the scent of her expensive French perfume . . . In the end, there is no escape, only a return to the self." —Terry Nguyễn, The Believer

"Zaher writes with spiritedness and verve, tackling issues like self-care and cleanliness to materialism and desire in a propulsive story about one woman’s sanitized ambition of never marrying with her grimy reality." —Nathan Smith, Observer

"Bracing . . . This is a novel about style—in both its main character’s selfhood and Zaher’s sonics . . . Zaher’s prosaism relies on tone and attitude, but she doesn’t surrender everything to it. Her attentive speaker, living temporarily in New York City, cares about details in her environs and clarity when it comes to describing her movements to her listener. Nothing is wasted . . . I read The Coin with avidity and I suggest you do, too." —Ron Slate, On the Seawall

"[An] exhilaratingly dark debut novel . . . The Coin is proof that the diasporic novel can be as chaotic and playful as a romantic comedy while remaining as claustrophobically introspective and deranged as anything by Sheila Heti—and all this, without sacrificing the tragedy and revolutionary possibility that defines minor literature." —Aria Aber, Bidoun

"[A] completely captivating debut. This is one of those books that was recommended to me by so many different people from writers to booksellers for months. Once I finally got my hands on it, it wasn’t a question of whether or not it was good. It was a question of how brilliant it was. I devoured this. It will easily be a book of the year and talked about for years to come." —Adam Vitcavage, Debutiful

"Zaher’s novel is unflinching . . . I became so engrossed in the momentum of the narrator’s telling that I could hardly put the book down without feeling that I should give myself over to it . . . If, as the narrator says, 'money simplifies everything,' then language only complicates, and for the better. Zaher’s novel deeply unsettled me, as only language can." —Ben Lewellyn-Taylor, Colorado Review

"A very stylish novel that manages to broach class and statelessness with tact and humor, while also touching on beauty, sex, love and the nature of civilization itself, all from a Palestinian debut novelist." —Literary Hub

"The exquisite novel probes the space between the tragedy of statelessness and the neurotic glow of affluence, proving that in this overlap lies a rich and bewildering landscape of human behavior. Strange and luminous, it weaves an elegant tapestry from disparate threads, touching on class, fashion, lust, grief, and violence with wit and poise. Funny, unnerving, and decadent, The Coin is at once an intimate character study and a startling portrait of contemporary America." —Bella Moses, Foreword Reviews (starred review)

"Wondrous . . . Capitalism, materialism, love, lust, friendship, purity, the natural world, cleanliness, place, and self-image are all explored in this thunderous, lightning-speed, fast-reading tale. Zaher, a Jerusalem-born Palestinian, writes with passion and holds nothing back in her buzzy, strong debut." —Library Journal (starred review)

"When past and present, self-indulgence and self-loathing collide, the result is a bold and terrifying reinvention . . . Brilliant." —Booklist (starred review)

"A hypnotic character study . . . Zaher consistently pinpoints those little textures and smells and impulses that can itch under a person's skin like a splinter and leverages them to build a world of seemingly indefensible cravings, unquenchable urges, and frantic pursuits." —Shelf Awareness (starred review)

"[A] hypnotic debut . . . Zaher’s writing is deeply arresting, especially when her narrator is energized by her newfound sense of self-possession in New York, where she walks the streets wearing a 'violent' and 'sexual' perfume and carries a Birkin bag, which thrillingly transforms her into an object of desire . . . A tour de force." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"The Coin is a brilliant, audacious, powerhouse of a novel. A story of obsession and appetite, politics and class, it is deliciously unruly. An exceptional debut by an outrageous new talent." —Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies and A Separation