The first-person narrator of the book, Khaled is explaining how he is seeing his old friend Hosam off to California. Hosam has just arrived in London from Benghazi. In the years since the Libyan Revolution and all that followed in the wake of it, Khaled has taken on the look of the middle-aged man whom life has given much experience. The two old friends stay up all night talking and then Khaled leaves Hosam at the train station. He then walks a meandering path back home and it is during these two hours that the entire narrative plays out as memories in Khaled’s mind.
When he was eighteen, Khaled began pursuing a literary degree in Edinburgh which meant leaving his home in Benghazi. At the airport, his father offers a stern bit of advice in such a way that the son is a little terrified. “Don’t be lured in” was taken by the boy to be a bit of Polonius-to-Laertes warnings against common temptations but when it is repeated as “Don’t. Be. Lured. In.” the son knows that his father is warning against the much more dangerous temptation offered by experiencing the freedom of the West after spending his whole life knowing only the oppression of the ruthless Libyan dictatorship.
In direct violation of his father’s caution, Khaled is tempted by the invitation from a fellow student named Mustafa to head to London and take part in a very public demonstration protesting that very same dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, who would briefly enjoy a reign as America’s public enemy number one. The protest takes place right outside the Libyan embassy and the response from inside is unthinkable to the rest of the world. Soldiers open fire on peaceful protestors. Among the wounded are Khaled and Mustafa. This stimulating incident is actually based on historical fact and within the fictional representation, at least, the entire world changes for the Libyan swho had taken part in open defiance of everything they were taught by fear to never do back home. Khaled suffers a greater injury than his friend and winds p hospitalized long enough for the isolation and paranoia to completely take over his psyche. So terrified is he by the thought of being identified as one of the protesters that he never speaks of the incident even to his parents over the phone so sure is he of the possibility he is being bugged.
Eventually completing his studies, he lands a teaching job in London partly on the influence of one of his colleges professors, a man named Walbrook. He continues maintaining the same low profile he adopted in school even when his reticence to divulge any potentially incriminating evidence against him become obstructions to enjoying a normal social life. In the months following the incident at the embassy he and Mustafa go their separate ways but when a reconnection is finally made Khaled lets Mustafa know that he is the one person in the entire world with whom he can genuinely be his honest self because of the bond they share.
A flashback to a time three years before Khaled left for Scotland provides the backstory for how he and Hosam became friends. While listening to a radio program that is suddenly interrupted, Khaled and his family hear a presenter introducing a promising young writer who will read a short story. The writer was Hosam and in the wake of that radio appearance he was forced to go into hiding after the man who introduced was found dead. When the Arab Spring revolution breaks out that will finally bring down Libya’s dictator, the three men each respond in different way at first, with only the born warrior Mustafa actively taking up arms. For Khaled, the choice is to stay far away from the upheaval and commit to a life lived under the radar and without any meaningful risks.
Eventually he learns that Hosam has actually joined with Mustafa to actively engage in the rebellion against the leadership. A few days later he turns to Facebook—which had its social media reputation essentially confirmed and cemented by its use to get information out during the Arab Spring—and is amazed to discover that the two men have been inseparable in their acts of bravery and heroism.
In the early morning hours of the day that began on October 21, 2011, Khaled receives a long and detailed email from Hosam, the first communication from him in six months. He has a story to tell about the events which had taken place the day before, October 20. It is the story behind the videos which popped up all over social media recording the capture and execution of Muammar Qaddafi. Hosam describes finding the former dictator hiding in a large drainage pipe and the heated war of words which took place between the faction which wanted to execute him on site and the faction which wanted to keep him alive so that he could be put on trial which might just possibly provide answers to some of the most pressing questions Libyans had wanted to ask for decades.
Khaled then tells the story of how Hosam went on in the aftermath of the overthrow of the despot to become a politician who eventually was named Minister of Culture. He also announces that in the past year he finally had completed an English translation of Hosam’s book of short stories which led to the book actually being published with some fanfare. Mustafa, meanwhile, has since the overthrow gotten married, had three kids, and become domesticated.
Khaled finally arrives back home and when he goes inside he sees that someone has left a message on his answering machine. It is comprised of just word, spoken by Hosam. “Arrived.”
