Sells Sea Shells by Mara Mer is a novella about a young, undocumented Moroccan man in Italy. Ismail works as a beach hawker, selling trinkets, beach towels, knockoff sunglass, and yes, seashell jewelry, and shares a tiny, run-down apartment with two other Moroccan boys. They live as cheaply as possible to send money home regularly. Ismail believes he’s close to buying Italian working papers, another huge expense on a small income.

There’s a feeling of resignation that never quite hits hopelessness here. Ismail is bad at selling, he knows he’s bad at it, and he doesn’t like the work, but what else is there to do? There are no jobs at home, and without Italian papers, there are no well-paying, overboard jobs for him in Italy either. But Ismail is surviving.

When he meets the wealthy Matteo at the beach, Ismail suddenly lets his entire history out, including his undocumented status. I realized here how much the author had led me to care about Ismail, even in such a short time, because I was so worried that Ismail would encounter prejudice, problems, or even deportation as a result. Ismail is the kind of character you can’t help caring about, with a vibrant, inner life and endless external struggles.  

After a second chance meeting between the men (although by the end of the book, I wondered if any of the meetings were accidental, or if Matteo planned the whole thing), Matteo says he has a proposition for a hard-working and struggling young man like Ismail. Naturally, Ismail wants to know more, and agrees to a meeting.

Something is off with the pacing here. This shocking request will bind the two characters together, illuminating both their similar family loMArayalties and very different social privileges. This scene should be a highlight of the book, and instead we get slow-moving pages of eating, drinking and looking around Matteo’s house, while Ismail — and the reader — must wait for Matteo to get to the point.

Without revealing Matteo’s request or whether Ismail agrees to it, I can at least say that it was an absolute shock. The two men are linked from then on, first by Matteo’s need for this action and by Ismail’s need to support his family, and then simply by revealing these vulnerabilities. Their choices will ripple out, affecting Ismail’s roommates, his family, and Matteo’s family. By this point, readers care so much for Ismail and want the best for him, but the author has set up a situation with no easy resolution.

I was left thinking more about a system in which some people have endless wealth and privilege — one of the first things Ismail notices about Matteo is that he’s reserved the most expensive row on the beach, for the whole season — and other people have next to nothing. The story asks readers to think about the worth of a life.  This novella tells a story, but it’s also a mediation on migration and privilege.