Salt Houses

Salt Houses is a 2017 novel by Palestinian-American author Hala Alyan. A multi-generational saga that begins in 1963 and concludes in 2014, the narrative traces the family’s experiences during key events of 20th- and 21st-century Palestinian history. The novel is polyvocal; multiple family members act as narrators. Although the novel provides an in-depth character study of the way that war, displacement, and diaspora impact each family member, it is also a portrait of the Palestinian diaspora writ large: The family’s internal displacement within Palestine followed by moves to Kuwait, Jordan, and the United States is representative of the Palestinian diasporic community during the mid-to-late 20th and early 21st centuries. Hala Alyan is an accomplished writer of both literature and poetry and is also a clinical psychologist.

In addition to Salt Houses, Alyan is also the author of the novel The Arsonist’s City (2021) and poetry collections Atrium (2005), Hijra (2016), and The Twenty-Ninth Year (2019). She was the recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2018 and, also in 2018, was a visiting fellow at the American Library in Paris. Born in Illinois, her family moved to Kuwait when she was young but successfully sought political asylum in the United States after Saddam Hussein invaded the country. Alyan holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from Rutgers University and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Like Salt Houses, the rest of Alyan’s body of work examines the experiences of the Palestinian diasporic community in both the Middle East and the United States and explores diaspora and displacement, the history of the Middle East in the 20th and 21st centuries, Arab and Arab-American identity in transition, the importance of family, cultural preservation in diaspora, and class.

This guide refers to the 2017 hardcover edition by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Content Warning: The source text contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault.

Plot Summary

Salt Houses begins in 1963. Salma, the matriarch of the middle-class Yacoub family, is the novel’s first narrator. Salma and her family live in Nablus, a Palestinian city in the West Bank, although they are originally from Jaffa. Like many other Palestinians, they were displaced during the Nakba of 1948 and were forced to flee their homes. The narrative opens with the wedding of Alia, Salma’s daughter, to her fiancé Atef. As part of the pre-wedding ritual, Salma reads Alia’s future in a cup of coffee grounds. Although she sees a dire forecast of uncertainty and loss, Salma keeps the worst of the predictions to herself and only tells her daughter of the good things life has in store for her.

Mustafa, Salma’s son, is the novel’s second narrator. He is close friends with Alia’s husband Atef and teaches arithmetic at the local school. A fierce advocate for Palestinian rights and self-determination, Mustafa is active in a local group of politically-minded men. Although a powerful public speaker, Mustafa begins to realize that words alone will not win Palestinians their homeland back, and along with Atef, he seems resigned to an actual battle.

Alia narrates the third chapter. It is now 1967 and she and Atef are living in Kuwait City. Although Atef is happy in Kuwait, Alia misses Nablus and would have preferred to move to Amman, Jordan, when the family was once again pushed out of their homes by the Israeli army. Her sister Widad lives in Kuwait City, but the two are markedly different and Alia does not feel at home among her sister’s friends.

The narrative then moves on to Atef’s story. He and Alia have been in Kuwait for 10 years, but he still struggles with traumatic memories of his time in an Israeli prison. Mustafa and Atef were both arrested because of their political activity during the invasion and although Atef was released from prison, Mustafa died there under mysterious circumstances. Alia misses her brother, but Atef is haunted by his death. It is clear that he has not fully recovered from the loss of his closest friend, and he spends his days mired in melancholy. As part of a therapeutic program, Atef begins recording his thoughts in the form of letters to Mustafa. Despite his grief, Atef loves his family and draws strength from his relationships. He and Alia have three children: Souad, Karam, and Riham. He divides his time between his work and his family.

Riham, now an adolescent, narrates the fifth chapter. She and her mother spend summers in Amman with her grandmother Salma, and although she and Salma share a devout devotion to Islam, Riham feels out of place with the chic, modern girls in Amman and misses her father and their quiet, scholarly life in Kuwait.

Chapter 6 moves on to Alia. It is 1988, and her daughter Souad is an unruly teenager. Riham, still much more devout than the rest of her quasi-secular family, is married to a Jordanian doctor old enough to be her father. Salma, the family’s matriarch, dies in Amman, and it is clear to Alia that Palestine remained her mother’s true homeland, even in exile. Alia, too, longs for a place that she does not call home and still wants to leave Kuwait for Jordan.

Souad narrates Chapter 7. It is 1990 and she is in Paris to attend an arts program focused on textiles and painting. Although her parents had objected to her studies abroad, they finally relented when it was decided that she would stay with family. Paris is sprawling and modern, and Souad sees it as a space of possibility. Despite her newfound freedom, conflict looms in the background. War has come to Kuwait, and the entire family spends their days glued to the news of it on the television. Her parents are forced to flee Kuwait City and resettle in Amman, Jordan. Souad, not wanting to return to her parents, agrees to a spontaneous marriage with her friend Elie.

Chapter 8 returns to Riham, in Amman. It focuses on Riham’s household and her son Abdullah, who has become political and is a fierce critic of the West. Karam and Souad now live with their families in Boston, and although the two are close with each other, they bicker with their mother and do not have much in common with their sister Riham. Alia resents Karam and Souad for moving so far away and is angry that she gets to spend so little time with her grandchildren.

In 2004, Souad, now divorced, spends the summer in Beirut with her children Manar and Zain and her mother Alia. Karam, his wife Budur, and their daughter Linah are also in Beirut, occupying a neighboring apartment. She had wanted to leave the United States after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and is forced to confront what it means to be Arab and Arab-American in a changing political landscape.

Chapter 10 tells the story of the 2006 Lebanon war through the eyes of Linah, Karam’s daughter. The adults, who watch the news constantly, do not fully explain the conflict to the family’s children, and they are left to wonder about what is going on. She and her cousins sneak around the deserted city, observing bombs as they fall and the panic in the eyes of those who remain in Beirut.

In Amman in 2011, Alia begins to behave erratically and is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The family rallies around her, and Atef reflects on their long lives together. He remembers Mustafa and each of their forced moves. As the children and grandchildren attempt to process the news about Alia, she continues to decline.

The novel ends back in Palestine, where it began. Manar returns to visit a country that she considers home even though she has never lived there. She sees the bustling cities, the many different Arabs of the region, and the impact of Israeli settlement. She has brought Mustafa’s letters with her and reads them while contemplating her family’s history. Alia’s death marks the conclusion of the novel. Although dispersed throughout much of the Arab world and the West, the Yacoub family is still fiercely bonded, and Alyan seems to suggest that, even after the death of Alia, they will remain a cohesive group.