Salt Houses

“Salma missed her home in Jaffa with a tenacity that had never quite abated. She spent the first years in Nablus daydreaming of returning.”

This passage speaks to the theme of Displacement and Diaspora. Salma never quite recovers from the trauma of being forced out of their home in Jaffa, and although their property was destroyed by the Israeli army, she still thinks of it as home. There is a sense in which the lands to which people are forced to flee never quite become home, and Salma still feels the pull of a homeland rendered inaccessible by war.

“He’d known girls like Aya, poor girls who lived by different standards than his female friends and relatives. These girls had their faith, but their lives were hard and bitter and full of death. The ones that weren’t married by their early twenties had a recklessness about them, giving their bodies with abandon. They hadn’t been raised on European summers and dinner parties; they had removed shrapnel from their brothers’ legs, had washed their sisters after rape.”

Class is an important subtext within the novel, and various characters come from a more working-class background than Salma and her family. Aya is one such individual, as is Priya. Much of the literature about Palestine focuses on the working class, and although Alyan wants to create a portrait of the way that war and displacement impact the middle and upper classes, her commitment to depicting each sector of Palestinian society makes for a more holistic and representative novel.

“‘Brothers,’ he says again, ‘we must fight.’”

This passage speaks to Mustafa’s characterization and foreshadows his death. Although he dies early in the narrative, his presence is felt throughout: He becomes a reminder of the personal toll of warfare and displacement. Atef will never truly get over his death. His character also speaks to the futility of Palestinian political activity and nationalism during this period. Several characters comment on how ineffectual their efforts to throw off the yoke of Israeli occupiers have been, and characters like Mustafa become symbols not only of secret hurt but of disappointment.

“Umm Omar practically leaped, spittle flying as she spoke. ‘The Israelis! They’ve done it. They’ve done it. Tiptoeing like cowards, sneaking around at dawn. They’ve snuck up on our boys. They’re in Sinai.’”

The Israeli occupation and the many waves of Palestinian displacement that it has caused are always in the background of the narrative. The family will be forced to move again and again as a result of land theft and terroristic acts like the burning of their orange groves. Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians will flare up repeatedly in the region, and although many members of the family will never live in Palestine, they will follow the conflict closely on television and always consider themselves Palestinians.

“Amman. To her mother, her aunts, to the cousins and childhood friends who moved there from Nablus after the war. The idea had struck her like rainfall, simple and clear. They should move to Amman.”

This passage speaks to Alia’s characterization as well as to the theme of Displacement and Diaspora. Alia wants to move to Amman because the society and culture there attempt to recreate what was lost in Nablus. To her, it is the closest space to their lost homeland that exists in the Arab world. Her husband disagrees, and they move to Kuwait instead. Alia will never feel comfortable in Kuwait and will remain unhappy in exile during all of the years that they live there. This shows that the difficulty of displacement can be lifelong.

“What kind of leader promises victory with scattered men? An Arab republic. Ha! Look at this, some American money and here’s Israel’s shiny new toys. What do we have? Flags, songs, dreams. They’re going to obliterate us.”

This passage, which details regional speculation on why Palestinians struggled to organize a successful defense against Israeli advancement into their homelands, grounds the novel within the regional history of Palestine. Israel has long had the support of the US government. In part because the lands of Palestine had been part of the Ottoman Empire before its dissolution, Palestinians lacked the kind of resources that would have helped them in their fight for self-determination.

“She misses Mustafa. Like a city after a Tsunami, the earth is altered without him, wrecked. They never found out how he died, just that he had, somewhere in an Israeli prison.”

Loss looms large over this entire story. The novel begins with an account of Salma’s lost homeland, and the loss of her son Mustafa will also greatly impact her and her children. That his death remained cloaked in mystery is a hurt that many, including Atef, will never manage to get over, and it will be the basis for familial objection to Abdullah’s political activities years later. The family will become markedly apolitical after Mustafa’s death, and although they follow the events of the region closely, they know the personal toll of political involvement and try to live their lives as normally as possible.

“Every two years she returns to India for a month, packing suitcases full of clothes and treats to bring to her husband and two children.”

Guest workers in the Arab world are common, and Alyan’s depiction of Indian domestic workers who give up their own lives to work in countries like Kuwait and Jordan grounds the text within the socio-cultural traditions of the region. Priya represents another driver of Displacement and Diaspora: global socioeconomic inequality.

“His brothers are far flung now, Amman, Istanbul, the youngest two lost in the bowels of Israeli prisons.”

This passage speaks to the way that displacement and loss inform this narrative. From the family’s original home in Jaffa, they spread far and wide throughout the Arab world as a result of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Very few of Atef’s family members feel truly comfortable in exile, and although they cling to the family members whom they do end up living near, everyone feels a sense of distance and loss.

“He is lifted, as always, by the sight of so many people in the car, bickering and talking and laughing, this family, his family.”

Familial Bonds in Exile is an important thematic focus point within the narrative. Many of the characters are bolstered by their strong family bonds, especially as they are separated from their homeland by diaspora and exile. Atef, who speaks these lines, finds solace in his family from the trauma he experienced during the Six-Day War. It is not until he is the father of three children that the war’s psychological impact on him lessens, and there are many moments during which he regards his family and thinks about how much happiness and stability they have brought to his life.

“There was another garden, Riham has been told, though the details of it are hazy to her, almost fictional. All she knows is this garden was in Palestine, and it burned down. It is linked to a war she learned about in school and to her father being away a long time ago. The adults rarely speak of these things, giving vague responses to questions. It is clear they find this kind of talk painful, and Riham isn’t the type of girl to ask for more.”

Although very little of this novel takes place in Palestine, the family’s homeland looms large over the characters and their experiences. The war moves from a central position in everyone’s lives to the background, yet much in the way that for Atef the war is never really over and dealt with, the family never truly gets over the loss of their original home and home country. Even the generations who never lived in Palestine are shaped by its loss.

“It’s not that Alia dislikes Riham’s faith; rather she is vaguely uncomfortable by its visibility.”

This passage speaks to Riham’s characterization as well as to the complex ways that culture weaves itself through diasporic families across generations. Although Salma’s religious convictions remain strong, her children’s response to war, displacement, and Mustafa’s death is to become secular. It is through her connection with her grandmother that Riham develops an interest in Islam, and their shared religiosity both derives from and reinforces their familial bond.

“You cannot let yourself forget.”

These are Salma’s last words, uttered moments before her death. They speak to the theme of Displacement and Diaspora: Although decades have now passed since she was forced out of Jaffa and then left Palestine, she has kept her homeland alive in her heart, in part through her memories and in part through her dedication to her culture and its practices.

“Alia filches a chopped carrot, feeling once more like a child. A memory floats to her unasked of her mother’s kitchen in Nablus: Sunlight streaming in through the windows, tangling on the coriander and mint plants on the windowsill. The image hurts, and she shakes her head to clear it.”

Alia never adjusts to life in Kuwait, and even many years after leaving Nablus, she still misses it fiercely. She would prefer to move to Amman because the city and its social world more closely resemble that of Palestine, but she is unable to because her husband wishes to stay in Kuwait. This homesickness and desire to live elsewhere is one of her most defining characteristics, and it stays with her for her entire life.

“One news report replaces another. The volume remains muted while French-language updates about the invasion travel across the bottom of the screen.”

This passage speaks to the way that news of war, specifically on television, functions within the narrative. War is an ever-present piece of this novel’s background, but because the family lives in exile, spread out across continents, they hear about conflict in their homelands and home region in large part through the media. This speaks to the lived experience of those in the diaspora who remain cut off from the spaces that they identify as home.

“‘All of this, all of you, this joke of a conversation. A group of middle-class Arabs, most of them more American than Arab’—here he looked pointedly at Souad and the tank top that showed the tops of her breasts—‘from the comfort of a mansion, speaking about the plight of the poverty-stricken. As if any of you have stepped foot in a refugee camp, you barely speak Arabic with your children.’”

Much of the literature about Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora focuses on the working class and working poor and on the experiences of refugees in camps. Alyan set out to write a novel about the way that conflict in Palestine has impacted the middle classes, but her novel remains committed to depicting the complexities of class. Various characters are aware of the privileges afforded to them by their class position, and Alyan is sensitive to the way that socio-economic status impacts the experience of diaspora.

“Home as in somewhere familiar, somewhere people look like us, talk like us, where you guys can learn Arabic and be near your grandparents and never come home asking what raghead means.”

This passage speaks to the experiences of the Palestinian diaspora outside of Arab spaces. Several of the characters must contend with anti-Arab prejudice, especially in the months and years following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Part of the pain of losing a homeland is losing the ability to grow up and live in a space where the majority population shares one’s culture, history, and background. That kind of cultural dislocation is part of this novel’s broader interest in the impact of displacement on the Palestinian diaspora.

“Souad watched the towers fall for days. The world was addicted to watching, over and over they were reborn, made whole and silver and resplendent, only to crumple into themselves again. Each time felt like the first time, the destruction so immense it bordered on the majestic.”

This novel is grounded not only within the history of Palestine but also within the history of the Middle East since the mid-20th century and in Arab-American social relations. Many of the characters experience war in their homelands while in diaspora and their exposure to the conflict happens second-hand, through televised reports. However, in addition to depicting the way that these events impact the characters in the narrative, Alyan’s writing speaks to the experiences of Arabs across the global diaspora. Her characters’ experiences are in many ways characteristic of real-life individuals living in the Middle East and beyond.

“The years went on. Their marriage died a thousand deaths before Elie finally caught on and left.”

This passage speaks to Souad’s characterization and the importance of familial bonds within the narrative. Souad struggles in her interpersonal relationships as a child, an adolescent, and as an adult. She is a stormy, willful woman who makes quick decisions and will argue bitterly to get her own way. Although these qualities do not endear her to her mother, many other family members observe that it is her mother Alia from whom she has inherited these traits. Many inherited traits link each generation to the next in the family, and Souad’s difficulties in maintaining healthy relationships are one example.

“The grandchildren spoke in faltering Arabic when they arrived, leaving their lives—Abdullah from university in London, Manar from an internship in Manhattan, Linah and Zain’s summer camp in Vermont. It didn’t matter what they were doing. They came.”

This passage speaks to the important and enduring role that family plays in the novel. The various members of the Yacoub family end up scattered by diaspora. Some remain in the Arab world and others make their way to the United States. Still, the family remains a powerful force in everyone’s life and is a source of strength and cohesion for each generation.

“This is the Amman that is coming, the future, inked women, beautiful gay boys, youth and subversion. Atef is strangely cheered by this thought.”

Although the novel’s focus remains on the immediate world of the Yacoub family, it does span much of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, and part of Alyan’s narrative project is the depiction of the Arab world in flux. Although some of the characters embrace tradition, many in the family are markedly modern, and the spaces that they inhabit are increasingly modern as well. This is another point of connection with the real-world experiences of the Palestinian diaspora: The novel grounds itself not only in war and politics but also in social transformation.

“You want to leave, leave. The men will stay.”

It is revealed only late in the narrative that after the Israeli invasion of Nablus, Mustafa wanted to flee to Amman. Atef shamed him into staying. Atef bore the guilt of this encounter for the entirety of his life. He believes that he is responsible for the death of his friend. This further contextualizes the depth of his grief in the first few chapters of the novel and explains why he spent so many years writing letters to Mustafa.

“Manar resists the urge to correct him. It is exasperating how easily her accent gives her away. It is like a fingerprint, something branding her, exposing her upbringing—Lebanese father, Palestinian mother, Paris, America. A mutt, her best friend Seham calls her.”

This passage speaks to the complexity of Arab identity and the way that diaspora shapes even the generations born in exile. Although Manar appears to be Lebanese because of her accent, she considers herself, at least in part, to be Palestinian. The author is also part of the generation born in exile, and her representation of characters such as Manar and her cousins speaks to her own experiences and to the way that she understands identity and identification for Palestinians in the diaspora.