“Feels revolutionary in its freshness.” —Entertainment Weekly “The Arsonists’ City delivers all the pleasures of a good old-fashioned saga, but in Alyan’s hands, one family’s tale becomes the story of a nation—Lebanon and Syria, yes, but also the United States. It’s the kind of book we are lucky to have.”—Rumaan Alam A rich family story, a personal look at the legacy of war in the Middle East, … 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.
In a novel teeming with wisdom, warmth, and characters born of remarkable human insight, award-winning author Hala Alyan shows us again that “fiction is often the best filter for the real world around us” (NPR).
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I received a copy of this story from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It left me with a riotous storm of emotions: frustrated, happy, nostalgic, cheated, lost, at home, adrift, and at peace. A long drama like this has a way of digging in and grabbing hold of you, only letting go when the story is ready to let you go. I feel like I know these characters. I feel like I’ve had tea with Ava, smiled indulgently at Idris and his Americanisms, rolled my eyes at Mimi’s moodiness, been charmed by Zakaria, gone dancing with Naj. They feel like friends.
If you only look at the surface, this doesn’t seem like a story everyone will be able to identify with. Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and so many other countries have experienced war in a way a lot of us cannot understand, not a bone-deep level. There is an uncertainty that pervades everything that I can sympathize with but not empathize with.
But there are so many things just beneath the surface here that are universal human experiences that I think this book has something for everyone. Maybe you’ll connect with Mimi and his creative struggles. Maybe you’ll learn how to be your true self with Naj. Maybe you’ll finally find the joy in a life you didn’t expect but wanted all the same.
I’ll be recommending this book to everyone.
I didn’t think I could love The Arsonists’ City as much as Salt Houses, but I did. It was sharp, thought-provoking. I couldn’t put it down. Hala Alyan is a lyrical force, a much-needed Arab American voice.
I don’t exactly understand how Hala Alyan does it — conjures love, sorrow, betrayal, and joy; goes from being funny and warm to incisive and thoughtful — but as a reader, I’m glad that she does. The Arsonists’ City delivers all the pleasures of a good old-fashioned saga but in Alyan’s hands, one family’s tale becomes the story of a nation — Lebanon and Syria, yes, but also the United States. It’s the kind of book we are lucky to have.
No one knows the human heart like Hala Alyan. Her ability to show its unexpected contours is on full display in The Arsonists’ City — a book so gorgeously written I found myself reading sentences aloud just to keep them with me a little longer.
Faced with the impending sale of their ancestral home in Beirut, the delightfully flawed members of the Nasr family must confront their late-onset nostalgia just as the secrets they’ve kept buried from each other are surfacing to air. An irresistible heart-tugger as complex and sensual as Lebanon itself.
Arsonists’ City
Hala Alyan
Idris Nasr, a Lebanese doctor living in America, announces to his family that he is selling his family’s home in Beirut; he feels it is time since his father has recently died. Traveling to Beirut with his Syrian wife, and met by his three adult children, Idris faces some stern opposition to the selling of the home, even though only one of his three children lives in the area and the family never seems to visit the ancestral home. As the Nasr family faces the history contained within and around the home, they are forced to face their own individual pasts and the secrets they contain.
I really cannot express in words how much I enjoyed Arsonists’ City. One of the things I really like about this novel is the structure, alternating between the present and the past. Alyan gives you just enough about the present so you can form an opinion and perception regarding the events, but then the events shift to the past, affecting those opinions about the people and circumstances, only for the narrative to jump forward and mold those opinions all over again. It was interesting to see the mirroring between the characters and the generations, and the nonlinear timeline is very effective at shining a light on these similarities, the largest being secrets. Arsonists’ City shows how dangerous and life-changing secrets have the potential to be, especially when they are kept for a long time, and how some secrets aren’t as hidden as some people think. The characters are extremely well developed; I don’t know if I have ever changed my opinions about so many characters so many times before. Their emotions are honest and often understandable within their various circumstances; they are relatable and realistic, secrets and all.
I highly recommend Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan. It is a moving novel full of love, secrets and personal growth.
Thank you NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for gifting me an electronic copy of Arsonists’ City, given in exchange for an honest review; all opinions are my own.
From that heart wrenching, empathetic prologue, “The Arsonists’ City” becomes a masterfully done family saga about the secrets people keep from their loved ones and healing frayed familial bonds. There’s also some social commentary on America, there’s sex and infidelity galore, there’s music, there’s betrayal, there’s the love, fleeting and not so fleeting, unconditional and not… There’s the backdrop of the Lebanese civil war that has a lasting effect on the country and its people and their descendants that echos even years after it ended. Characters provide more background information in the story for readers (like me) who have little knowledge of the war… The part where Mazna is talking with her theater director and other actors provided decent enough context for me.
I have very few complaints. Mazna and Najla were my favorite characters, so I personally wish more of the story was focused on them, rather than have it be split equally between them and the others. Accordingly, I didn’t like the sections with the others as much. Like Mimi. He’s a fallible human…and relatable, to an extent, but honestly pretty unlikable. It took me until the very end to warm up to him. Idris as well. I thought him irredeemable for [spoilers]… but the scene at the end softened me.
Will probably read “Salt Houses” in the future, and definitely “The Twenty-Ninth Year.” It was no surprise to me that Alyan is also a poet.
*I read this via NetGalley
“We deserve our secrets.”~from The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan
Secrets. Everyone has them. We keep secrets out of shame, out of fear, to protect loved ones, to protect ourselves.
Keeping a secret can destroy. Guilt that alienates from others and eats at your soul. Suspicion that wracks relationships.
Some families balance on the edge of a well-hidden secret, and when it is outed, life tumbles like dominoes.
Hala Alyan’s family saga The Arsonists’ City is a big book, with a big family, following forty years of their lives. I made a family tree to keep track of them! Their journey crosses the ocean, from Beirut and Damascus to America. It is a journey not only across time and space, it delves into the depths of love and grief.
I became obsessed with the novel. Foreshadowing brought me to guess some secrets and conflicts to come. I didn’t know if the story was coming to a car wreck or redemption, resolution and growth or despair and endings.
At the heart of the story is Mazna, the beautiful Syrian who aspires to be an actress. When Idris sees her on stage, he is smitten and pursues her, taking her on day trips to his hometown of Beirut. When Mazna meets his dearest friend Zakaria, a poor boy from the Palestinian camps, she is drawn to him.
Forty years later, after his father’s death, Idris is determined to sell his ancestral Beirut home, setting off a firestorm in the family. The family gathers one last time, Idris and Mazna, their three children, and a daughter-in-law.
Idris, not handsome enough, not sure enough, had pursued the beautiful Mazna, a poor Damascan girl with powerful stage presence in the local theater. She dreams of going to London and then American to become the next Ava Gardner or Vivian Leigh. She poses as a friend to his sister Sara. Their marriage was rushed; he caught her “when she was broken.” Idris gained a residency in America. They begin in poverty until he established a career as a cardiologist surgeon.
The eldest child, Ava, lives in New York City, married to the American Nate. She comes with their three children, Nate claiming a work trip keeps him from joining her.
Next is Mimi, living in Texas with his American fiance Harper. Although he runs a successful restaurant, he is frustrated over his tottering music career and aging out of being ‘cool’.
And there is Naj, the youngest, who stayed in Beirut. She is a wildly successful violinist, a media sensation, but self-destructive, angry and heartbroken.
Gathering mementos for the patriarchs memorial service, the children discover hints to their parent’s secret past.
The Beirut home takes its place as an important ‘character’, more than a backdrop to the scenes that play out there. It is a link, a reminder, a legacy. When one of the cherished almond trees is nearly cut down, it is a symbol of the family’s frailty. But the other trees still remain, the house still stands.
The family drama is universal in its appeal and message. It is the setting and background that allows American readers like me to see through another lens. “We all come from tribes,” Zakaria tells Mazna early on. “People don’t need much of a reason to hate each other.”
And that tribal hate manifests itself in the act that sends Idris and Mazna spiraling into a future neither expected.
Checkpoints, sectarian violence, the continual war, colors the scenes in Lebanon.
“The war continued to chug along like a faithful engine, destroying the city. It’s like background nose, Sara said once.” ~From The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan
Once in America, the family discovers they are ‘brown’, other, victims of mockery and hate. “Neighborhoods are arranged by skin. Jobs, schools.” Mazna learns. The beautiful Mazna can not find acting roles, passed by because of her accent, her otherness. She blames Idris for ruining all her chances.
But it is a small mercy, how time distills what we know, how it fictionalizes it.~ from The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan
The characters struggle with their pasts, their relationships, their guilt and their desires. But over the summer in the ancestral home, they find truth and new understanding, family ties are ultimately strengthened.
I received an ARC from the publisher through Amazon Vine. My review is fair and unbiased.
“An outcry in an echo chamber isn’t much of an outcry.”
Told in alternating viewpoints and timelines, The Arsonists City tells the story of a family in turmoil after the patriarch, Idris, decides to sell the family home in Beirut. Through the 3 siblings, we learn of their lives, their connection to Beirut, and each other. We also get their mother Mazna’s point of view, of her life before and during her marriage to Idris, and her life growing up in Damascus.
This book is long and comes in at 442 pages in paperback. The text is incredibly tiny. I imagine if they made it a bit larger, the book would have been even longer. The incredibly small text made this a much harder read for me.
Incredibly character-driven, you get a richly descriptive story in this book. It is an exquisite read from start to finish. Each of the siblings is relatable in their own way. I loved the multiple settings, the history of the wars, and the dynamics of the Nasr family. There were many layers to this story, and it was beautifully told. Thank you, HMH, for sending this along.