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I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Title: The Arsonists' City
Author: Hala Alyan
Release Date: 3.9.21
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publisher's Summary
A rich family story, a personal look at the legacy of war in the Middle East, and an indelible rendering of how we hold on to the people and places we call home
The Nasr family is spread across the globe—Beirut, Brooklyn, Austin, the California desert. A Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three American children: all have lived a life of migration. Still, they’ve always had their ancestral home in Beirut—a constant touchstone—and the complicated, messy family love that binds them. But following his father's recent death, Idris, the family's new patriarch, has decided to sell.
The decision brings the family to Beirut, where everyone unites against Idris in a fight to save the house. They all have secrets—lost loves, bitter jealousies, abandoned passions, deep-set shame—that distance has helped smother. But in a city smoldering with the legacy of war, an ongoing flow of refugees, religious tension, and political protest, those secrets ignite, imperiling the fragile ties that hold this family together.
The Nasr family is spread across the globe—Beirut, Brooklyn, Austin, the California desert. A Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three American children: all have lived a life of migration. Still, they’ve always had their ancestral home in Beirut—a constant touchstone—and the complicated, messy family love that binds them. But following his father's recent death, Idris, the family's new patriarch, has decided to sell.
The decision brings the family to Beirut, where everyone unites against Idris in a fight to save the house. They all have secrets—lost loves, bitter jealousies, abandoned passions, deep-set shame—that distance has helped smother. But in a city smoldering with the legacy of war, an ongoing flow of refugees, religious tension, and political protest, those secrets ignite, imperiling the fragile ties that hold this family together.
My Review
“I think people deserve to have their secrets.”
Spanning the years between the 1960s and present day, this layered, multi-generational story of the Nasr family is complex in characters and settings. Idris (Lebanese medical student) and Mazna (Syrian actress) escape to America under asylum for Idris' surgical residency in the wake of his best friend Zakaria's (Palestinian pastry chef) death. Settled in Blythe, California the couple must learn to navigate through this new landscape and their new lives. Many years later, when Idris' father dies, Idris and Mazna want their children to return with them to Idris' family home in Beirut for a memorial service and to sell the house. The three siblings (Ava, a scientist living in Brooklyn, Marwan "Mimi", a renowned chef and guitarist living in Austin, and Najla "Naj", a world-traveling musician based in Beirut) have complicated relationships with each other and each parent. The tensions, resentments, and jealousies build throughout the entire story and each secret unfurls as the summer comes to an end--some secrets become known to the entire family and some to the reader alone. Reading this 464-page novel is a commitment that requires patience. The pacing is slow (but never dull) because author Hala Alyan wants to fully immerse you into the worlds of these flawed characters.
A few notes:
- Formatting: In my eARC the timeline jumps and character shifts between sections made reading a bit confusing. Hopefully the final copies will have these sections labeled with which character's POV we are about to read from and the date.
- Cover/title: I feel that this cover and title don't match the story... in very much the same way "The Last Romantics" (another family saga) was mismatched. I think something more along the lines of "The Beirut House" with the cover photo of a home's courtyard and almond trees or the city itself would be a better fit.
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