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Loading... Salt Houses (2017)by Hala Alyan
   No current Talk conversations about this book.  nadia.masood | Dec 10, 2023 |   Salt Houses is a multi-generational family saga that shows how a family is changed by displacement. The Yacoub family moves from Israel to Palestine to Kuwait, Jordan, and Lebanon. Some family members find home in the United States for a while, others in France. Alyan explores the impact of war, exile, and separation on a family. It is a character-driven novel of people that feel fragmented due to multiple moves over time, losing pieces of their history and identity. For example, the younger family members are seen by society as Palestinian, though they have never lived there. They only know what their parents or grandparents have told them. The chapters read almost like a series of short stories, focusing on different family members of all ages over a timespan of four generations. Alyan’s writing is elegant. The characters are well-developed and believable. The inter-generational disputes are particularly convincing. It focuses on interactions among family members, their marriages, disagreements, personality conflicts, and how they adapt to different homes. Recommended to those that enjoy stories of immigration, refugee experiences, or family dynamics. (  ) Castlelass | Oct 30, 2022 | But throughout changes, moves, tragedies, and separations, this family continues to be connected through love and traditions, marriages and divorce, children and grandchildren. Beautifully written. (  ) sriddell | Aug 6, 2022 | I had one problem with the book: the changes in time and perspective in each chapter were sometimes confusing, especially if there were flashbacks or foreshadowings within a chapter. ( ) Marietje.Halbertsma | Jan 9, 2022 | Please see my full reviews available at www.coffeeandtrainspotting.com. For requesting arcs and books to review, please visit www.netgalley.com. ( ) SarahRita | Aug 11, 2021 |
In what feels like a very personal debut novel, the award-winning poet Alyan, her lyrical skills on full display, traces four generations of the Yacoub family as they are forced into the ranks of the Palestinian diaspora. Constantly uprooted by war, Salma, Hussam, and their children Widad, Alia, and Mustafa make disparate decisions that have ramifications for their offspring over five decades. First fleeing Israeli tanks that bulldoze through their home in Jaffa, later settling in Nablus, only to be routed by the 1967 Six-Day War, Alia and her husband, Atef, relocate with her sister Widad to Kuwait. Salma, now a widow, joins the family in Amman, Jordan, while Mustafa, the rebellious brother who was the light around which his family circled, disappears. The Yacoubs are fortunate. Not relegated to refugee camps, they have the wherewithal to fashion new lives for themselves. Still, Alyan makes it abundantly clear how displaced persons, separated from their culture, their religion, and their homeland, are forever altered. VERDICT This timely historical does for the Palestinians what Khaled Hosseini did for the people of Afghanistan. By placing readers inside the hearts and minds of one Arab family scattered from Paris to Boston to Lebanon, she beautifully illustrates the resilience of the human spirit. AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
"From a dazzling new literary voice, a debut novel about a Palestinian family caught between present and past, between displacement and home ... On the eve of her daughter Alia's wedding, Salma reads the girl's future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is up rooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia's brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world he can't escape; and Alia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City, where they reluctantly build a life with their three children. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, Alia and her family once again lose their home, their land, and their story as they know it, scattering to Beirut, Paris, Boston, and beyond. Soon Alia's children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation in foreign cities. Lyrical and heartbreaking, Salt Houses is a remarkable debut novel that challenges and humanizes an age-old conflict we might think we understand--one that asks us to confront that most devastating of all truths: you can't go home again"-- No library descriptions found. 
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4)
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Some parts of the book dragged on and on, and there are just too many characters (I had a hard time keeping up). However, I can’t deny that Hala is a good storyteller. The language and descriptions are beautiful. The last parts of the book are incredibly moving. (