Daniel is a Lebanese man born in Beirut, who is also known as Yalo. The novel takes us through Yalo's life.
He's been arrested and charged with crimes ranging from rape and theft, to terrorism and murder. That's what the interrogator accuses him of, and he's dead set on getting a confession that proclaims no less.
A series of events leads Yalo to his strange hobby of stalking lovers in the bushes at night and robbing them.
On one occasion he holds up a couple. The woman, Shireen, begins crying her eyes out.
The man she is with jumps into the car and speeds off.
Yalo is left with Shireen, so he takes her with him to his hut, where they end up making love.
He falls in love with her and begins pursuing her vehemently.
Months go by, with the girl telling Yalo to stay away from her. She has a fiancé and does not want to be with Yalo, which Yalo cannot not accept.
The novel begins with Yalo sitting in an interrogation room, Shireen behind him with her fiancé, accusing Yalo of rape.
While awaiting trial in jail, Yalo is tortured in unimaginable ways.
During this time, he is forced to reflect on his life.
This is where the writing comes into its element. Yalo's thoughts and actions, as he reflects on them, are that of a mentally unfit person.
Then he speaks of his family and one gets the idea that he had been surrounded by people who had a few screws loose.
When looking at his relationship with Shireen, his actions tread the lines of obsession, making him look nothing short of a stalker. As the story progresses, one sees that Yalo's obsession may have been enforced by the woman's actions and charm.
At one point, his grandfather, a priest, seems overly excessive in his principles and behaviour. At another point, Yalo is able to translate his grandfather's compulsiveness into a range of philosophies that had no way of making sense to him before he endured tortuous experiences.
Subsequently, the lessons that have destroyed Yalo will be the very same lessons that build him back up.
One can get an idea of the kind of writing that has to go into telling a story of this nature, in this manner.
One may not relate to Yalo's actions at all, but will connect with his feelings on an authentic level. It is amazing.
The only aspect that one might find tedious is the way in which the story is told, which involves many repetitions of specific situations. With that said, the exclusion of these repetitions would probably take away from the weight of the experience.
Yalo is a novel that one would read over and over again. It holds so much meaning that it can induce a number of epiphanies. There's no entertainment in this one, just silence, introspection and self-realisation.
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