"There it is. She had not been mistaken. The porcelain surface of the teacup is white as salt; the landscape of dregs, violent."
We first meet4.5 stars
"There it is. She had not been mistaken. The porcelain surface of the teacup is white as salt; the landscape of dregs, violent."
We first meet Salma and daughter Alia the night before Alia’s wedding. A tradition passed through the generations, the reading of the coffee dregs foretells the future of the bride-to-be. The omen traced by those dregs will soon come to pass.
Spanning decades, Salt Houses depicts the absorbing story of a multigenerational family in the Middle East beginning in Palestine in the early 1960s. Years of turbulence and violence will uproot the family a number of times, forcing them from their homes and scattering them in various directions from Palestine, to Kuwait, to Jordan, to France, to the United States, and to Lebanon. The meaning of home and holding onto one’s identity will be repeatedly questioned and tested.
"The houses float up to his mind’s eye like jinn, past lovers… They glitter whitely in his mind, like structures made of salt, before a tidal wave comes and sweeps them away."
The novel is structured to give us multiple perspectives from different members of the Yacoub family over the years in the various locations to which they have been displaced. Each chapter is clearly noted as to place and time, but the reader should pay careful attention, in particular if the more recent history of the Middle East is one in which he or she is not well-versed, much like this reader. As with most (or dare I say all) families, each individual has flaws, conflicts exist between members, and everyday issues often eclipse the discord of the political and religious upheavals. It seems teens will be teens and spouses will have their disputes, no matter where you call home. I found the women of this novel to be particularly interesting. Some have upheld the traditions of the Muslim background, while others have become more modern, casting aside the veil and taking up more westernized practices. I suppose you could say that the Yacoubs are more fortunate than most displaced persons; money has provided them the means to relocate to their own living quarters rather than the makeshift camps of the refugees.
"Parallel lives, she sometimes thinks. It was a matter of parallel lives, one person having lamb for supper, the other cucumbers. With fate deciding, at random, which was which."
Salt Houses does not focus on the wars of the Middle East, but rather provides us with an intimate view of how these conflicts affect individuals and family units. If you are not familiar with the history, you will perhaps grasp a better understanding of the timeline of the various events that have transpired in the past fifty years or so. The tragedy of September 11, 2001 is touched upon briefly as some of the Yacoubs have moved to the United States. I cannot say that there was any one character I grew to love, but I was sympathetic to almost all of them. Many family members did not see eye to eye a lot of the time, but when they banded together each was strengthened. It was a lovely reminder of what a family can be when forgiveness is granted and positive connections are reinforced.
Author Hala Alyan is a poet and a novelist, and her prose is really beautiful. There are no flashy, wasted words here, yet all is conveyed eloquently. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys very compelling family dynamic stories, as well as those that appreciate learning about other cultures and the migrant experience.
"Nostalgia is an affliction… Like a fever or a cancer, the longing for what had vanished wasting a person away. Not just the unbearable losses, but the small things as well." ...more
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