Aged 34, Diana is nine years out of graduate school. She has spent the time teaching and being continuously in debt, and she decides to return to Amman to research a novel, funded by a Fulbright Scholarship. She feels she has lost her connection to Jordan; on the journey over, she is surprised by the sight of veiled women, people praying in the airplane aisle, and armed soldiers guarding the airport in Beirut.

Before Diana leaves, her mother shows her photos of Bud and his many brothers—“rough little boys” (236). Diana wishes her mother would ask her not to go, but instead her mother tells her she needs to take “fancy clothes [because] [t]hey love dressing up for dinner over there” (238).

Once in Amman, Diana hardly has time for writing, as she hosts a stream of curious American friends and is herself hosted every night by one or other of her uncles, almost all of whom have returned to Jordan from America. Her relatives cook huge meals, and her uncles forcefully encourage her to eat as much as possible, competing for the title of best cook. Her single, pretty friend Tess is courted by “Bachelor-Uncle,” the one uncle who does not cook well and is extremely stingy with money and food.