book review

            A Sprinkle of Dust: A Mother’s Struggle with Loss and Healing is a powerful memoir about a close-knit Arab-American family’s attempt to sustain a young man battling cancer and to recover after his death. Author Mary Saad Assel, a retired professor of English at Henry Ford College, has had an eventful life. Living in Lebanon, Senegal, and the United States, she has faced many crises with determination, strength, and love. Saad Assel writes in the prologue, “I was a wife at fifteen, a mother at sixteen, a widow at thirty-five, and heartbroken by the loss of my son at fifty” from a “terminal brain tumor” (p. xiii). This book “describes how I struggled to find hope and meaning in a challenging life” (p. xiv). She hopes to “ease the journey of other parents who have lost a child prematurely” (p. xv).  Using lyrical imagery and specific details, Saad Assel creates a memorable portrait of a unified and courageous family.             When her firstborn son Mazen is ten, kidnappers in Lebanon capture him.  Fortunately, they…