Saud Alsanoussi’s novel The Bamboo Stalk provides a grim picture of transnational migrant women’s working conditions in the Middle East. Comparing it with the South Asian novel by Thritee Umrigar, The Space Between Us, shows how household workers are seduced by and impregnated by the “Masters,” of the household. As the half Fililino, half Arab young child Jose grows up, he learns how his mother was deceived into believing that there would be love and care for him, but there is only derision from his aristocratic Arab ancestors, just as there is derision in the South Indian novel. Thritee Umrigar’s novel shows how the Parsi family hold onto their Iranian roots and religious caste system in their practice of an ancient Iranian religion, while living in India. Both novels show the Middle Eastern sense of superiority which I call “exceptionalism.” This paper will rely on Judith Butler’s theories of Precarity and Barbara Ehrenrich and Arlie Russell Hochchild’s Global Woman.