Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Salt Houses
Hala Alyan
Review by Priscilla Comen
Salt Houses
Hala Alyan
Review by Priscilla Comen
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan is the saga of a Palestinian family, how it grows and moves, and lives. Alma is the widowed mother, Alia the daughter who marries Atef. In the beginning, they are planning the wedding. Widad is the serious single daughter, and Mustafa is the handsome son. He feels his life is boring until he is encouraged to speak at the mosque to a group of men from Jerusalem. The Imam, Bakri, urges him on.
Author Alyan presents her characters in alternating chapters, and they enter our hearts. Alia is pregnant and goes to Kuwait to visit her sister, Widad. While there she hears on the television about the war. Israel defeats Palestine in six days and Mustafa is dead. No one knows how or where. When Alia’s husband returns after the war, he’s a different person, mute and depressed. Ten years later, Atef recalls the torture he endured, but his psychiatrist says the dreams will subside. And they do. He writes it all down in letters to Mustafa, Atef is promoted to Honorable Professor at the University He has a lovely wife now, a villa, and three bright children: Riham, the intellectual one, Souad the energetic one, and Karam, his son. The family does things together, goes to the zoo, and the beach.
When they go to the beach in Amman, Riham swims too far out and feels she is drowning. She calls for Allah, and is rescued. She marries a doctor from the hospital. Her friends are doctors’ wives, and wealthy. Her husband has a son by a former marriage, Abdullah. She loves him and worries about the pamphlets she finds in his room that preach about Allah.
Saoud is like her mother, wild and rebellious. She moves to Paris and lives with Elie. She has a child, and moves to Boston near her brother Karam and his wife and child. When they all move to Beirut to be near their aging mother and father, their children play together. They find Atef’s letters which he had written to the dead Mustafa and thus learn the history of their country and their family.
Author Alyan brings us to future generations, to Linah, Zain, Manar, and Abdullah. When Manar travels to Palestine to trace her heritage, she is disappointed. Can we ever “go home again?” Find this amazing saga on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Author Alyan presents her characters in alternating chapters, and they enter our hearts. Alia is pregnant and goes to Kuwait to visit her sister, Widad. While there she hears on the television about the war. Israel defeats Palestine in six days and Mustafa is dead. No one knows how or where. When Alia’s husband returns after the war, he’s a different person, mute and depressed. Ten years later, Atef recalls the torture he endured, but his psychiatrist says the dreams will subside. And they do. He writes it all down in letters to Mustafa, Atef is promoted to Honorable Professor at the University He has a lovely wife now, a villa, and three bright children: Riham, the intellectual one, Souad the energetic one, and Karam, his son. The family does things together, goes to the zoo, and the beach.
When they go to the beach in Amman, Riham swims too far out and feels she is drowning. She calls for Allah, and is rescued. She marries a doctor from the hospital. Her friends are doctors’ wives, and wealthy. Her husband has a son by a former marriage, Abdullah. She loves him and worries about the pamphlets she finds in his room that preach about Allah.
Saoud is like her mother, wild and rebellious. She moves to Paris and lives with Elie. She has a child, and moves to Boston near her brother Karam and his wife and child. When they all move to Beirut to be near their aging mother and father, their children play together. They find Atef’s letters which he had written to the dead Mustafa and thus learn the history of their country and their family.
Author Alyan brings us to future generations, to Linah, Zain, Manar, and Abdullah. When Manar travels to Palestine to trace her heritage, she is disappointed. Can we ever “go home again?” Find this amazing saga on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.