Hala Alyan
The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan is a multi-generational family saga about a Lebanese/Syrian family. The patriarch is Idris Nasr, a Lebanese, married to Mazna, a Syrian. Their three children are Ava, Mimi (Marwan), and Naj (Najla). Apart from Naj who lives in Beirut, the family all live in America. Set mostly against the backdrop of a Lebanon emerging from sectarian tensions and civil war, the novel covers a span of about 40 years. The focus is on Mazna and her adult children. Their challenges and personal demons are gradually revealed through temporal shifts and locations alternating between Damascus, America, and Beirut.
The novel opens in 1978 when Zakaria, a young Palestinian refugee, is murdered in Lebanon in an act of sectarian revenge. The novel goes back to 1965 to introduce a young Mazna in Damascus, an aspiring actress with dreams of becoming a Hollywood movie star. Through a mutual friend, she meets Idris in 1978 who becomes totally besotted with her. And through Idris, she meets Zakaria. The three become involved in a love triangle when Mazna and Zakaria fall passionately in love and make plans for a future together. Their love affair comes to a screeching halt with Zakaria’s murder.
Shortly after Zakaria’s death, Idris is accepted in medical school in California. He proposes to Mazna with lures of Hollywood fame. A broken-hearted Mazna accepts his proposal, resigning herself to a marriage with a man she does not love. Forty years later when Idris decides to sell the Beirut ancestral home he inherited from his father, he causes a family uproar. The family converges in Beirut to hold a memorial for Idris’ father and to protest the sale of the home.
In this character-driven novel, Alyan excels in creating authentic, believable, and multi-dimensional characters beset with sibling jealousies and rivalry, marital bickering, simmering resentments, petty squabbles, thwarted aspirations, and ongoing deceptions. The ebb and flow of their relationships as they push away from one another or pull toward one another realistically capture the complexity of family dynamics. Each character is fully fleshed out, unique, flawed, and realistically drawn. The dialogue is natural with its pauses, hesitations, things said, and things left unsaid. Secrets buried for forty years bubble to the surface. Added to the mix are first and second generation struggles with issues of forced migration, displacement, fractured identity, questions of belonging, assimilation, and loss of homeland.
This complex, multi-layered novel grips the reader from the first pages of its riveting prologue depicting a revenge murder to the last pages depicting the resiliency of the Nasr family bond. Alyan’s finely drawn characters, intricate storytelling, masterful pacing, and sparkling prose attest to her skill as an accomplished writer well-deserving of the accolades she has received.
A compelling family saga. Highly recommended.