I remember as a university English lit major getting a paper back in which I’d written 15 pages about Daniel Defoe’s 1722 novel, MOLL FLANDERS, without ever mentioning the main character’s name, not even on the title page.

That dubious distinction came to mind as I traveled through Zaina Arafat’s compelling first novel, YOU EXIST TOO MUCH, which is about the yearnings of a young woman who is intentionally never named. The impact of that namelessness never really hits home until the book, rather than concluding, simply ends.

"Fictional by creation, but quite believable in its depth of psychological and social detail, YOU EXIST TOO MUCH evokes the malaise experienced by all too many women whose transitions from childhood through youth and adulthood lack strong landmarks."

But the story itself is left unfinished. It floats along loosely, and at times anxiously, in a sea of unfulfilled desires, until arriving at a place where the currents are temporarily calmer, where the anonymous anti-heroine seems to exhale before moving into yet another uncertain episode of existence.

Arafat covers a great deal of emotional, cultural, geographical and sensual ground in capturing the fragmented existence of a young Palestinian American woman caught amid conflicting expectations --- others’ and her own. There are family traditions to navigate, a precarious mother-daughter relationship to simultaneously cherish and abhor, a series of volatile affairs with both male and female lovers, and obsessive self-destructive habits and addictions that keep Arafat’s protagonist constantly off-balance.

By “existing too much” (a rebuke originating with the young woman’s mother when she was only 12), she repeatedly fails to discern between wants and needs, a tragic flaw that leads her to discard relationships that could have been life-changing --- even life-saving --- and rush into others that further erode what little sense of identity she has.

It can all start to feel very depressing and meaningless for readers hoping that maybe the next change of lover will be “it” or that some epiphany might occur where wasted potential is realized. Spoiler alert: It never happens.

Yet in its very ambiguity, the vague existence of Ms. “X” is expressed with powerful immediacy and realism. Fictional by creation, but quite believable in its depth of psychological and social detail, YOU EXIST TOO MUCH evokes the malaise experienced by all too many women whose transitions from childhood through youth and adulthood lack strong landmarks. The result is a blurred existence rather than a focused and purposeful life.

Perhaps that’s why Arafat withholds naming her main character. Existence, whether too much or too little, is not solid enough to hold a name.