Salt Houses

by Hala Alyan

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 uprooted 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. 

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Middle East, Book Club, Historical, Literary Fiction, War

312 pages, Hardcover

First published May 2, 2017

About the author

Hala Alyan was born in Carbondale, Illinois, and grew up in Kuwait, Oklahoma, Texas, Maine, and Lebanon. She earned a BA from the American University of Beirut and an MA from Columbia University. While completing her doctorate in clinical psychology from Rutgers University, she specialized in trauma and addiction work with various populations.

Her memoir, I'll Tell You When I'm Home is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in June 2025.

She has published two novels, her debut Salt Houses (2017), is the winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, and her second novel, The Arsonists' City (2021).

Alyan's poetry collections include Atrium (2012), winner of the 2013 Arab American Book Award in Poetry; Four Cities (2015); Hijra (2016), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry; The Twenty-Ninth Year (2019); and The Moon That Turns You Back (2024).

She co-edited the poetry anthology We Call to the Eye & the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Heritage (2023) with poet Zeina Hashem Beck.

Alyan has also been awarded a Lannan Foundation fellowship and her poems have appeared in numerous journals and literary magazines including The New Yorker, The Academy of American Poets, Guernica, Jewish Currents,The New York Times Book Review, Prairie Schooner and Colorado Review.

Alyan is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Applied Psychology at NYU. She resides in Brooklyn with her family.

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We can't imagine how dreadful, how terrifying war is; and how normal it becomes. Can't understand, can't imagine. That's what every soldier, and every journalist and aid worker and independent observer who has put in time under fire, and had the luck to elude the death that struck down others nearby, stubbornly feels. And they are right.”
― Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others

I can't even begin to imagine how it must feel to be faced with the fact that you can never return to your home. That most precious of places - a safe haven from all the madness that takes place in the big outside world. However, this is exactly what our family in 'Salt Houses' has to face when they are uprooted as a result of the Six Day War of 1967.

The story begins on the eve of Alia's wedding, when her mother Salma reads her daughter's future in the dregs of her coffee cup. Salma doesn't like what she sees, namely an unsettled life for Alia, but she decides to keep that knowledge to herself.

Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus and Alia and her husband move to Kuwait to start a new life albeit reluctantly. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, once again the family are uprooted and so the scene is set for this rich and colourful family.

The author allows us to follow this family through the generations, and paints a picture that is hard to witness. Displacement is a shocking thing to experience, to not belong anywhere. The family isn't perfect, there are the inevitable arguments, but it's wonderful to watch as they share grievances, laughter, celebrations, meals, and fears.

Let me just say, that right now I have a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes on finishing this book, I feel as if I've got to know this family, and Alia's husband Atef is a delight. This gentle man lives with guilt, but loves his whole family unconditionally, and it's so easy to love him. In some ways the family are better off than most, as they have the money to relocate each time, whereas others have to live in refugee camps in nothing more than a flimsy tent.

The author has done a splendid job of relating how it feels to be a displaced person, and just how cruel war really is. Insightful and heartbreaking.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for my ARC in exchange for an honest review*

[Canadian Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what a salt house was before reading this so I googled the crap out of it and there was still no definitive definition. A house by the sea was the closest I got - but that's all you need to know for this one.

This is a multigenerational story of a family in the Middle East. It's where traditions are weaved intricately into the daily lives of this family. It starts with a coffee ground reading for a girl about to be married, which foretells of a horrific and unstable future.

Not long after, the 6 day war in Palestine begins which alters this family's life by taking with it a brother and displacing them into another country.

Years later, another war in Kuwait takes place. Displacing them yet again. The devastation that comes with it leaves me haunted. The loss of their home which is the centre of their memories; of their family. The loss of friends, siblings, children and the heaviness that comes with moving on when one has no choice.

A heartbreaking yet hopeful story of pain; grief; and the chance to pick up the pieces - for their children; for their own lives. Told from multiple perspectives of one family, this story is one of survival and the costs war has on lives, traditions, faith and what is known as home. Beautifully descriptive this one gets a 5*****.

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

A displaced family, a multigenerational story of their lives over decades in the various places they move to - from Jaffa to Kuwait to Amman to Paris and Boston . A Palestinian family, the Yacoubs, a family of means is not unscathed by the wars and the politics of the places in which they live because they live comfortably. It affords them the ability to leave their home when they have to insure their safety but it doesn't insulate them from the deep emotional consequences of being displaced. These are not the refugees that we read about in the news and see on tv news casts living in tents and starving. This is not a story that primarily focuses on the ravages of the wars, but on how the displacement from their home and from the places they call home affects who they are, how they live. I was taken right from the beginning by the writing and I loved reading about the customs, how the children and then the grandchildren resist the traditions, how the future evolved with them. I really like the multiple points of view with alternating chapters of some of the family members.

The sense of loss, of identity for the children and grandchildren of Alia and Atef depicts what so many people must have felt like after 9/11, how they were treated because of where they were born. "Souad felt the clerks' gaze - two young Midwestern men, eyes like icepicks - on them the entire time. One of the men flung the change at her, several coins falling to the ground. Souad's fear was like a bell waking her. As they were leaving, she caught the words terrorist and bitch and a burst of laughter." And Linah , the next generation, feeling confused and is speechless when a girl in school says, "You think your people deserve to be here? My mom told me all about them. Palestinians killed my uncle during the war."

While their experience is not typical, I loved that so much about them felt typical- the teenagers especially. What I loved most was how the family all comes together. I loved the family dynamics, loved that the children and grandchildren came to know who they were even though only one of the grandchildren gets to go the place where the family begins - depicted in a beautiful scene by the sea. The one thing that was a little bothersome and perhaps the reason for taking off a half star was that I was confused at times in the earlier chapters when time frames of the past and present in a single chapter were not clear. Having said that I found the most beautiful writing in the book in the last few chapters and the epilogue. Hala Aylan's poetic talent is reflected in her beautiful prose and moving scenes. Definitely recommended.
Another great read along with Diane and Esil.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt through NetGalley.

[Tim Null · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Our mutiny is our remembering."
"...a remembering akin to joy."

If a novel without discernable plot can be considered well written, then Hala Alyan's Salt Houses is it.

If you ever have any inclination to read Salt Houses, read Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa instead.

If you absolutely have to read this book, read the opening paragraph, then skip way, way, way ahead to the section titled Manar. It begins: Jaffa September 2014. Read from there to the epilogue. At that point, skip ahead to the last page of the epilogue.

The theme is that money can help protect us until war comes crashing into our lives, like a 9/11 airliner. At that point, our only options are bad ones. If we survive, our memories will become a form of rebellion against the insanity of it all.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan is a 2017 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publication.


Powerful, eye opening cultural family saga –

This deeply absorbing novel follows a Palestinian family through several generations as they endure war, loss, and displacement.

As the story begins, Salma follows an old tradition of 'reading' the coffee dregs for her daughter, Alia, before her wedding.

What she sees, disturbs her, as it appears her daughter will lead an unsettled life, but she decides not to share her knowledge with anyone.

Yet, her predictions soon come to pass, as their family suffers a loss they never fully recover from and must leave the home they love.

Years later, Alia and her husband, who have settled in Kuwait, lose everything they built all over again.

The one thing I kept thinking as I read this story is how devastating war is. Politics, greed, and evil often work in tandem taking innocent lives and causing upheaval to those who only wish to carve out a comfortable life for themselves.

I know people adjust to living abroad if they deployed by the military or if they live in another country by choice, but how sad it must be to be forced to live somewhere you never fully feel ‘at home', or to have your family constantly uprooted.

It must, in some ways, feel as though their heritage has been robbed from them, their history and family ties watered down and dispersed over many places.

The historical details span several decades and gives the reader, especially people like myself, who knows very little about the Palestinian culture, a realistic glance at these events through their eyes, which is quite humbling and sobering.

Through this often forced migration, each member of the family is seemingly pulled in a different direction, with their root system yanked from them.

The women in this novel are highlighted more so than the men, not that the men play lesser roles, exactly. But, it is Salma, Alia and her daughter, Souad, who commands the pages. Their inner thoughts and the mother/daughter dynamic through generations is as normal as any, but with a different set of standards by which they often judged or criticized the other.

There is something indecent to Salma about how transparently Alia flourishes her emotions.

While this family avoids some of the truly horrible fates some have suffered because of war, but who, despite their advantages still loses the foundation they wish to build upon. Once displaced the family never seemed to find a real resting place within their hearts.

The story is told through the prospective of different characters, each bringing into focus a different feeling of conflict or of understanding or compromise.

Nostalgia is an affliction. Life 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.”

Ultimately, the story is compelling and touches on several important themes that are very much on our minds, but is also a rich family saga, with interesting and thoughtful characters.

Although, I am sure there are finer points to the story I failed to grasp in my ‘Western’ ignorance, but I still found this to be a very profound and thought -provoking novel.

4 stars

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 I have thought about this book on and off for the last day or so a buddy read with Angela and Esil. Such a wonderful family, displaced people, living in countries not of their birth. Displaced by war, in Iraq, Kuwait, Palestine, Arabs who try to find a home. We follow this family through generations, chapters devoted to different family members and my favorite from the beginning was Atef. This man who marries Alia, a woman he loves very much, but he is consumed by so much guilt, a quiet man who has so much hope in his family, their lives. This family will eventually be dispersed, some in Paris, Boston, Lebanon, a family divided by circumstances often beyond their control. They are though luckier than many as they have the money to relocate, not having to live in tents in a refugee camp.

What I was thinking though was how hard it is to live in a country you are unfamiliar with, to heaving to adjust again and again, to, watch your children settle elsewhere. That they only want what we all want, a home, safety, their children close, a place where they are wanted, belong. They worry over their children, their marriages, what they will eat, they laugh, cry, get angry, are sad when they cannot connect with their family. Lastly, some pass on and some get sick, but in the end family is family and so it proves in this story. Yes, it is indeed a story but very real too I believe, honest and thoughtful and about a subject the author herself knows well. Indeed these people are like all of us and I can't help thinking that if people would pay more attention to the things that make us the same instead of the things that make us different, that just maybe there would not be these constant wars. naïve probably, but as you can see this book gave me much to think about.

ARC from publisher.

[Esil · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s something about Salt Houses that worked perfectly for me. It’s a multi-generational story about a family originally from Palestine, displaced and scattered, but that remains strongly united over the years. The story is told from the alternating points of view of a few family members across three generations, starting in 1967 up to today. Each lengthy chapter picks up a few years after the previous chapter, but flits back and forth in time, catching us up on what happened in the last few years. The points of view are deeply subjective, immersing us into these characters’ idiosyncratic understanding of their lives and their place in the family. The women in particular resonated for me. This is not a dysfunctional family, but it is a family of strong personalities -- full of love but with lots of jagged edges. The writing is beautiful – expressive but crisp -- not flowery or sentimental. I loved the sense of place and the way in which recent history is woven through the story. The theme of dislocation is familiar, but Salt Houses treats it with more subtlety and finesse than many books I have read. Highly recommended. One of my fiction favourites so far this year. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy. And thanks to Angela and Diane for another excellent buddy read.

[Candi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 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."

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
This is a beautiful story about a Palestinian family uprooted from their home in Nablus in 1967 in the wake of the Six-Day War.
The story begins with a mother named Salma reading her daughter Alia's future in a cup of coffee dregs on the eve of her wedding, and follows this family through their displacement to Kuwait. In 1990 they lose everything again and scatter to Beirut, Paris, and the United States.
We will see this family grow, Alia's children, grandchildren, and follow their heartbreaks and blessings.

Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, author Hala Allan, and NetGalley for this advanced copy!

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

...4.5 Stars.

...A wonderful Palestinian family saga evolves decade by decade taking the reader from one side of the world to the other, from one culture to another beginning with the happiness of young love and marriage in a land most loved through sadness and loss and the devastation of war with recurring displacement.

...Most memorable for me, though, won't be the difficult times, but the beautiful descriptive scenery of a place I have little knowledge, the interspersion of life-changing historic events, and finding that despite major cultural disparity our family lives are not so different after all.

...SALT HOUSES is an insightful debut novel.....its focus on family and memories. Recommend!

...Many thanks to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Jola · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have you ever been in a group of tourists guided by someone who was speaking in a quiet, insipid voice, without changing intonation? You probably caught your mind in the act of wandering away. Maybe you felt like abandoning the group and exploring the city on your own? That’s what I experienced most of the time while reading ‘Salt Houses’ by Hala Alyan. The closer to the end the better this book gets but all in all, it hasn’t proved to be the treat I anticipated.

If I showed you ‘Salt Houses’ and asked you to guess what this book is about, judging only by its cover, you’d probably opt for something whimsical. You would be surprised to find out that it’s a story about cruelty of war, which tears families apart and affects most those, who have nothing to do with politics. It’s also a multigenerational saga about displaced people, who keep escaping, circulating between distant countries, missing their homes and relatives: ‘Palestine was something raw in the family, a wound never completely scabbed over’. It’s also a novel about the lost and desired sense of belonging, lust for the past, conflicts between generations, coming out of age. The list of topics is impressive indeed but to my mind, Alyan just tips the surface of complex issues. For example I hoped for an insightful account of Palestine but unfortunately I don’t seem to know much more now than before reading ‘Salt Houses’.

The geographical locations, time and characters, who take turns to appear in author’s spotlight, change really fast, actually every chapter. Although Hala Alyan gives exact names of geographical locations and specific time, I had a feeling that I’m constantly reading about the same people. As if there were some ready to use schemata, like ‘a grumpy granny’ or ‘a rebellious teenager’, repeated a couple of times. Personally, I would prefer fewer psychological portraits but more profound and diversified.

I read in the blurb that ‘Salt Houses’ is a heartbreaking novel. Well, my heart is definitely still in one piece. No emotional strings attached to any characters. It felt as if Hala Alyan was telling me some stories about distant relatives she feels rather neutral about. I regret but they didn’t resonate with me.

It was a great idea to add more dynamics to the plot by something I'll call vaguely ‘Mustafa mystery’ to keep my review spoiler free. Unfortunately, when explanation was finally revealed I felt disenchanted.

As for writing style, I read Alyan’s novel immediately after a book by Anita Brookner, which I’ve recently raved about. Compared to linguistic lace of ‘Strangers’, the language of ‘Salt Houses’ seemed a bit colourless at first but then I quite liked it. Right from the start you can feel that the novel was written by a lyrist at heart. Not only at heart, Hala Alyan has already published three poetry books. No wonder she is in good terms with words. She confesses in 'Acknowledgments': 'Without the poetry I would never have found the prose.

The writing style is the only level this book worked for me. For example I definitely liked the metaphorical title and the way symbols of salt and water were delicately woven into the structure of the novel. I enjoyed many intriguing but melancholic passages, which prove how sensitive to words Hala Alyan is:
‘Their marriage died a thousand deaths before Elie finally caught on and left.'

‘What is a life? A series of yeses and noes, photographs you shove in a drawer somewhere, loves you think will save you but that cannot. Continuing to move, enduring, not stopping even when there is pain.’

She’s sensitive not only to words but also to colours:
‘The light is the color of chamomile tea, pale against the floors and walls.’

I've noticed that Alyan’s book is loved by many readers although, frankly speaking, I’m not quite sure who it was meant for. I suspect it’s too boring for romance fans, too superficial for people interested in history, too sketchy for those who like psychological novels. I read so many enthusiastic reviews. They made me feel envious, as I might have missed something important everyone is enjoying so much. As there is a gap between my rating and majority of readers’, you should definitely see for yourself. Don’t repeat my mistake though and don’t approach ‘Salt Houses’ with great expectations. It’s an easy way to feel the salty taste of disappointment.

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

”The tongues have been cut from the bells
Lest they swing out loud and tell
How still we hide away
Shadows whisper by like brooms
Skirting halls to basement rooms;
They hunker low, waiting out the day…

“Great water lies between us
Great water moves below—
Great water lies between us
Great water begs we both arise and go”

-- Water Between Us, Joe Henry, Songwriters: Joe Henry

4.5 Stars

"That house. The ones that came after. He thinks of them, instinctively touching the soil again. All the houses they have lived in, the ibriks and rugs and curtains they have bought; how many windows should any person own? 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."

This is a beautifully written, multi-generational family story that begins in the Middle East, in March of 1963, beginning with the reading of coffee grounds to tell the fortune of a young woman on the verge of marriage, on the day of her wedding as preparations are going on around them.

”When Salma peers into her daughter’s coffee cup, she knows instantly she must lie.”

The Six-Day War in Palestine would follow soon enough, and a brother’s life is sacrificed in the battle.
Time and time again, this family is forced to leave their home, leaving everything they had known and everyone they loved outside of this family. They leave for another place, another country. From Jaffa they left for Kuwait, and when another war breaks out, they must leave. And so they go to Amman to live, leaving behind the emotional touchstones of each place, and maybe a little of themselves, as well. They are not leaving for a new job with higher pay or their dream job, or the perfect home or setting, they are leaving in order to continue to live.

”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.”

”Widad and Alia and Mustafa, they might have known gunfire and war, but they were protected from it with the armor of wealth.”

America’s influence is felt in this story, in the fashions changing around them, but the world is shrinking, and the influences of the world are felt, and there are those in this family who choose to see what life in America is like. Their family worries then about what will happen to the family traditions and customs and their faith?

A feeling of loss permeates these pages, but there is also so much hope, and such a strong sense of compassion and love for one another within this family. I loved this family, loved spending time with them, being in their homes, and learning about their lives.

The writing flows with a loving touch of a poet, simple but elegant while avoiding becoming overly ornate and sentimental. The story is heartbreaking in moments, but the love that is just underneath their stories elevates this just enough to keep you reading.

Home. Family. Love.


Many thanks to the Public Library system, and the many Librarians that manage, organize and keep it running, for the loan of this book!

[Debbie W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary debut novel! I found the well-developed characters to be engaging and relatable. Also, I learned a lot about the Middle East and how it affected people (sadly) during this time period. Recommend!

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Deeply appreciated the themes of dislocation, trauma, and the healing power of connection in this multigenerational Palestinian family saga. The somewhat gentle writing style juxtaposes interestingly with the violence experienced (mostly off the page) by the characters and their loved ones, though I appreciated their outright condemnation of colonial forces including the United States (as we continue to send money to Israel as it perpetuates genocide in the Middle East…) I wish Hala Alyan had stuck with a few characters and gone deeper into their narratives and stories instead of sticking to the surface of many different characters.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

At a party in the evening before her daughter Alia's wedding, Salma reads the patterns in the coffee grains in her daughter's cup. She's frightened at the unsettled life she sees predicted. She does not want to spoil Alia's happiness and only tells part of her fortune. Salma, a Palestinian from Jaffa, had been displaced and was now living in Nablus with her family. The Six Day War in 1967, and Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 forced the family to migrate several more times until family members were living around the world.

This is a multi-generational novel about a Palestinian family trying to make a home and hold on to their culture. It's about how this family copes with war, with very little about soldiers, politics, and the actual wars. Salma's family was educated with the resources to make moves to a safer place, unlike some other Palestinians who went to large camps. Like every family, there were times when the younger and older generations didn't understand each other. They had the additional stresses of trying to adapt to the cultures of other countries over and over again. After the towers fell on 9/11, the grandchildren who had moved to America were regarded as possible terrorists.

Hala Alyan is a good storyteller who created vibrant characters with strong personalities. Although this is her first novel, she has also written three books of poetry. I enjoyed her beautiful, lyrical writing in "Salt Houses". The book has a family tree in the front which helps in keeping the sixteen family members (in four generations) straight, but the number of characters might bother some readers. I just reread this book for a book discussion.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

... We are what we produced in the land that was ours
we are what’s left of us in exile
we are the plants of a broken vase
we are what we are, but who are we?
Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet

This story is as beautiful as the cover that contains it. I was spellbound by Alyan’s storytelling, moved by her use of language and engrossed by this family’s history. We follow four generations of a Palestinian family and see real world events through the lens of these characters’ experiences and what the author has noted is the ‘intergenerational trauma that trickles down through generations.’

From the West Bank to Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan, France and the U.S., the Yacoub family suffers the loss of their homeland, constant displacement and a never ending search for identity, all the while trying to imbue their cultural traditions on each successive generation.

Even if a person’s heritage was flimsy, unused for years, you were where your father was from.

What Alyan does so remarkably here is to weave moments big and small into a larger panorama of one family’s displacement, the longing for what is lost and the nostalgia of a homeland they’ll never again know. And just as the title suggests, their memories like their houses ‘glitter whitely…like structures made of salt, before a tidal wave comes and sweeps them away.’

For me the best books are those that provide a rich experience, bestow deeper insights and grant me moments of divine fulfillment. Salt Houses did all that and more and I highly recommend this transporting and transformative book.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this novel. It takes a Palestinian family and follows different members throughout periods of conflict, chaos, and opportunity. It starts in the early 1960s and follows through the present day. It asks questions about home, family, belonging, and identity. Despite events often being dictated by war and early characters being forced into becoming refugees, the focus is much more domestic. The characters are worried about their relationships, their toys, their classes. I really appreciated the juxtaposition because so often characters in novels where war is present can only talk to each other about the war. There are tiny details that come back around and have a great impact. I will be nominating this for my book club for next year!

Thanks to the publisher for providing access through NetGalley.
Published 2 May 2017.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty impressive debut novel; a multigenerational family drama about the displacement of Palestinian refugees due to wars in the Middle East. The story has multiple narrators and follows four generations of the family as they are displaced over and over again, finally scattered throught the Middle East, Europe and America.

I loved the first three quarters of the book, but started to lose interest in the fourth generation of narrators. I put the book down for a while and then had a hard time remembering who was who and how they all were connected back to the original narrator. Fortunately, the author includes a family tree at the beginning which proved helpful more that once.

The writing was very good and I really enjoyed the differing perspectives and personalities of each of the narrators. For me, though, it was just too much of a good thing and it lost some steam at the end. Nevertheless, nicely done. The people and places really come to vivid life in Alyan's novel.

[Paltia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Travel through time and place in this gorgeously written novel. A story of generations spanning the forced removal of Palestinians through 9/11. Though the times are filled war and flight, there are also celebrations of marriages, births, and the family. Alyan never becomes heavy handed. Rather, she delivers with a gentle and enduring touch. A must read for anyone seeking to understand the plight of refugees and how family can both maim and ultimately mend.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

“He thinks of them, instinctively touching the soil again. All the houses they have lived in, the ibriks and rugs and curtains they have bought; how many windows should any person own? The houses float up to his mind’s eye like jinn, past lovers…. They glitter whitely in him mind, like structures made of salt, before a tidal wave comes and sweeps them away.” – Hala Alyan, Salt Houses

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.

[Karen R · Rating 4 out of 5]

This multi-generational story is a beautifully written debut novel. The story takes place between 1948 and 2014 and is told via shifting viewpoints of a Palestinian family. The author is genius at crafting her vibrant characters and how each personality deals with homeland instability, their struggles, upheavals and day to day uncertainty, the byproducts of middle eastern politics and war. I cared about what happened to each of them during tumultuous times. I know little of the Middle East culture and appreciated being schooled in the cultural differences between generations. The unforgettable story pulled me in from the start.

[Olivia (Stories For Coffee)]

A wonderfully written multi-generational, historical fiction following a displaced Palestinian family as each generation explores their connections to their culture, religion, family, and history. I do wish we had shorter chapters and more time exploring each character rather than following them for a brief moment in their life in order to feel more connected to them, but this was still a moving read.

[Margitte · Rating 3 out of 5]

A family saga spanning several decades. A Middle-Eastern family, mostly from Palestinian origin.

Ali and Atef Yacoub are the anchor couple in the family, starting their life's journey in a fisherman's village in Nablus, on to an apartment in Kuwait, a house in Amman, for Alia an old vanished house in Jaffa, a dwelling in Beirut, with their children being born as they constantly had to flee the wars in the Middle-East. In Atef's mind their different dwellings became like glittering salt houses, which vanished the moment the waves hit the beaches of his mind. No permanency for a family who lost their Palestinian roots each time they had to leave another part of their own story. The new beginnings constantly had to close before the family could properly put down roots.

Then came Paris and eventually Boston, for those family members who made it through the emotional and physical turmoil of war.

Throughout this diaspora, the new generations changed, adapted to their new surroundings, and became less bonded to Alia and Atef's memories. Yet, the family managed to stay together, and like any other family experienced the nostalgia, frustrations and uncertainties of a history they could not completely call their own. Their graves would be spread everywhere around the globe one day.
Atef's letters to Mustafa would decades after it was written, bring new insight into the family's origin to the grandchildren.

The novel has a tight family vibe and manage throughout to capture the essence of a family in transition. Their displacement was always borne out of necessity, and not out of a willingness to explore new possibilities.

The characters were so well developed in such a cultural richness. It was the mainstay of the reading experience. However, and sorry about that, the novel dragged on and on and on, losing any pull that it had in the very beginning. Parts of it were confusing.

The story of the Palestinian resistance was the main focus with the bombing of cities, and the loss of resistance fighters in every combat. It is the story of displacement and the sad impact it has on the people who constantly have to flee for their lives. The Yacoub family was just used to fill out the message. Can it be described as a documentary in novel form? I was looking for more, and did not find it. Nevertheless, the novel is an eye-opening experience. The reality of the Palestinian situation was not compromised, or as the author mentioned in another context in this plot, The truth was given. But amputated. As it turned out, time would be terrifying and tremendous at the same time.

A very good debut novel.

[Stephanie Anze · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the eve of Alia's wedding, her mother Salma reads her future in a cup of coffee dregs. What she sees alarms her. Alia and her soon-to-be-husband Atef have a complicated and difficult life ahead of them. Salma, however, says nothing only mentioning the pleseant parts of the reading to Alia. Not much time passes when the Six Day War takes a member of the Yacoub family (Alia's famly) and forces the rest to relocate. It will be the first of many forced moves.

This multigenerational family saga follows the Yacoubs, a family of Palestinian origin. Set during various middle eastern conflicts, the timeline of the book is from the 1940's to present day. Narrated by different family members, each new generation talks about the most recent conflict and how it has affected them (there are four generations in total). Political turmoil and war forces Alia's family to uproot and start over in a new country time and time again. With settings that range from Jaffa, Kuwait City and Beirut to Amman, Paris and Boston, this novel takes the reader on an extensive excursion. Events such as the Six Day War and the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein are the framework for the constant displacement this family faces. Their culture and identity is challenged by the lack of a permanent home as the more they move, the less they feel they belong anywhere. That is the reference to the title 'Salt Houses', houses easily washed away. Though the background of the novel are noted events, this novel is not politically heavy. Rather the focus is the family and their migrant experience. Well written and researched, this novel was thoughtful and timely. Would definitely recommend.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salt Houses is a novel that eventually comes full circle, as it follows the female members of a Palestinian family as they flee, move, marry and cope with constantly being and feeling outside where they belong, including between generations and even between siblings.

Each chapter is titled with the name of one of the family, beginning with Salma, the mother of Alia, in Nablus, Palestine, the town she and her husband Hussam and their children fled to in 1948, following the Nakba (catastrophe). Alia is a child of war, barely three years old when they had to flee.

The opening lines are an indication of what is to come and intrigue us to want to know more, they remind me of a visit to Palestine where I first heard about this cultural divination practice, Tasseography, the art of reading coffee grinds, a ritual that dates back thousands of years.

“When Salma peers into her daughter’s coffee cup, she knows instantly she must lie.”

Alia’s older sister is married and lives in Kuwait, a land Alia is reluctant to visit, but when she does in 1967, finds she is unable to return to Palestine due to “the Setback” (the Six-Day-War), thus her children will know a home and culture, even though connected to her heritage, very different from her own.

As each generation makes a move, Hala Alyan takes the reader on an emotional journey of perseverance and loss, against a background of political manoeuvring. While the narrative avoids the conflict and brutality of war and deplacement, we become witness to the separation of a family from its roots, its culture, its land, and in particular the effect on a Palestinian family of the founding of Israel and the conflicts that followed that caused them to become refugees, firstly in their own country and latterly in neighbouring countries.

The separation is not just from their land and traditions, but between perceptions, as family members find it difficult to understand the yearnings of their elders and parents find it difficult to understand the foreigners their have become to them. Fortunately, like with many families, solace can sometimes be found for a child with their grandparent, those who have seen too much to be surprised by anything anymore, who have arrived at acceptance without judgement.

Salt is referred to throughout, invoking memories of family living near the sea displaced inland; fathers who “salted everything after that, even his water,” houses lost, eroded like salt; lives soothed by and almost taken by immersion in salt water. It is everpresent.

“The porcelain surface of the teacup is white as salt; the landscape of dregs, violent.”

Through it all Alia’s husband harbours a secret that torments him, one that he lives with by regularly writing letters that are never sent, seeking atonement.

The novel traverses with diligence a difficult period in the history of Palestine and the Middle East, demonstrating the resilience of humanity to survive, the sacrifices that are made and the cultural poverty that is experienced giving rise to the insatiable desire for families to remain connected, not just to each other but to the small yet important things, the traditional rice dishes, the olive, the orange tree, the desire to keep flowers blooming, no matter where they find themselves.

Their homes may crumble, but their spirits continue to reignite and flourish, wherever their heads may lie.

Hala Alyan is a Palestinian-American author, poet and practicing clinical psychologist living in Brooklyn, who spent her childhood moving between the Middle East and the US. Salt Houses is her debut novel and is inspired by some of her own extended family experiences.

“I definitely think there was an intergenerational trauma that went along with losing a homeland that you see trickle down through the different generations” Hala Alyan, NPR interview.

[Anmiryam · Rating 5 out of 5]

The conflicts and upheaval of the middle east can feel overwhelming when consumed as news, but in Salt Houses, Hala Alyan captures what we all need to see -- wars irrevocably scald people and mold their characters. Home is a mutating concept for the members of the Jacoub clan as exile -- from Jaffa to Nablus, Nablus to Kuwait City, then to Amman, Beruit, and beyond -- reverberates through succeeding generations.

The novel started slowly for me -- I nearly didn't get past the first two chapters -- but once the narrative focuses on Alia and Atef it took off and never let up. It is Alia who is the beating heart of this book -- by turns fiery and prickly, tender and protective -- she is not an easy character, but she manages to survive and raise three children who also manage to find their way in an uncertain world.

While the sense of loss of "home" is an undercurrent for all of the characters here, this is not a book that wallows in regret, but focuses instead on characters struggling to accept who and what the world has made of them while finding some semblance of home not in place, but in family connections.

It will be a great discussion book, one well worth using to broach discussions of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict since it wears it's politics lightly, which isn't to imply that Alyan trivializes the complex politics of the region in any way, but rather that while politics and conflict are always present, the reader will experience them only as the characters experience them. Her characters are simply trying to figure out how to live. For the most part they are not combatants, but regular people trying to survive, and find a modicum of peace, in a volatile region.

[Alka Joshi · Rating 4 out of 5]

There have always been and will always be people who are uprooted from their land of birth for political or religious reasons. This is the poignant story of several generations of one Palestinian family who was forced to leave their homeland. I have a fondness for stories about families, especially if those stories take place in a foreign country. My mind can travel freely while my butt is firmly planted on a reading cushion at home. And, because I love stories with several narrators, this one didn't disappoint. From the point if view of multiple characters in Alyan's novel, we learn how each feels about their separation, isolation, and refugee experience. We also learn about the Westernized Arab culture, treated with respect and care by Alyan. I loved this novel. It stayed with me a long time.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's so easy to label people for their heritage, or for the country in which they were born. The evil of war affects and dislocates those who only wish to live their lives and raise their families. This is the story of one such family, yearning for the home they lost in Jaffa during the displacement of Palestinians in the late 1940s. Told intimately through the multigenerational voices of various members of the family, I felt the joys, pains, frustrations, and longings of each. The writing is beautifully descriptive of places and personalities. The story is a journey spanning the Middle East, Paris and the US as each search for a place to belong. The book is not just a glimpse into the plight of refugees, but the story of family and the bonds that hold them together.

[Sharon Metcalf · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the beginning I sensed this was a 4 star book but I was wrong. As I read the final pages the feeling that for me this was a 5 star book was overwhelming. There isn't one thing I would change and there was so much I adored about it, not least the writing. Oh, the writing. The prose was magnificent. Salt Houses was Hala Alyan's first novel and I can't imagine how she could possibly deliver to this standard again - but if she puts pen to paper I will undoubtedly put my hand up to read what she writes.

Salt Houses spans a fifty year period and brings to life four generations of one Palestinian family. The way the story unfolded we got to know all family members quite intimately. As in life, each person was an entity holding no more or less importance than others. Above all it was about family, the individuals, their personalities, their behaviours, the ways they deal with others as well as what life throws their way. It is about how lives are shaped, the way sickness, religion, culture and heritage each contribute.

It is, of course, also about how major upheaval results from war in this part of the world. How families are uprooted, loved ones lost. How this family moved from Amman to Palestine and back again, to and from Beirut, how some escaped further afield to the USA or to Paris, London. As an ajnabee (foreigner) to the area I had wondered if I might gain some understanding of world events, the details of which seem to evade me in real life. I did not but that's okay. This story provided no political insight into the why's and wherefores behind the strife and conflict in those parts. It did however put people in the middle of these events, gave them names, made them familiar so I could feel the impact of the strife even if I still didn't understand the underlying issues. My lack of understanding seemed to be echoed toward the end when Alia (the aging and memory impaired matriarch) was watching the television news and observed "What they say never changes. There is a war, Alia knows. She understands this intuitively; in fact, it seems to her the only truth she holds immutable. There is a war. It is being fought and people are losing, though she is uncertain who exactly"

Hala Alyan is a clinical psychologist and award winning poet. Her book suggests to me through her career she has gained a thorough understanding of people, their thoughts and behaviours. It also seems evident her skill as a poet has transferred superbly to prose. She combined these skills to eloquently show how patterns of behaviour were repeated throughout the generations. She demonstrated how family members can be frustrated by each other, clash fiercly at times but that beneath it all is a love that endures. The love of family - withstanding all obstacles, traumas, distances and deaths.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way this book is structured has really left me in awe. It's incredibly thoughtful.

Each chapter of this book is told by a different family member, and in each chapter, we hop forward in time a couple of years. We see snippets of the Israeli 6-day war on Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. Iraq invading Kuwait. Israel bombing Lebanon. We see moments, but it's in the gaps. What's unseen and unsaid that it's going to keep me awake tonight.

I loved this family, and I especially liked their varying degrees of belief. I love this kind of representation which we don't see enough and is very reflective of the region.

But what struck me the most is the reality that there are millions of displaced Palestinians around the world bringing up children who have gone to have their own children and all the lost memories as the events of their lives and evacuations are too traumatic to talk about.

I felt Aylan's trust for her reader here. It's the best example of 'show not tell' I've read in a while. She doesn't hand hold, she doesn't explain every single event, she doesn't bombard with endless historical text. She's trusting me to find out, to research.

I don't say this lightly, but this feels like a masterpiece to me.

Five stars.