Moving through space (America, Lebanon, Syria) and time (from the 1960s to 2019) The Arsonists' City tells a sprawling yet engrossing tale about the Nasr, a Syrian-Lebanese-American family. Written with the same subtlety and beauty as her debut novel, The Arsonists' City presents readers with a cast of fully-fleshed out characters, however flawed or frustrating they may be, a rich exploration of the Nasrs' personal and cultural identities, and a glimpse into Lebanon and Syria's complex pasts and presents.
The prologue opens up with the death of a young man. The narrative then introduces us to the Nasrs' 'children'. There is Ava, the eldest, the only one in the family who is not driven by ambition or particularly cares to be in the spotlight. Although she's quite content with her job as a microbiology teacher, her marriage is undergoing a rough patch. her relationship with Nate, her husband, is undergoing a rough patch. We then have Mimi, their mother's golden boy, whose musical career never truly kicked off. As Mimi's bandmates get younger and younger, and his peers are getting married and having children, he feels stuck. Naj, the youngest and the only one who lives outside America, is part of a successful musical duo. In Beirut, she feels free to do as she wishes. Her family don't know she's gay and Naj isn't keen on abandoning her party lifestyle.
Over the years the siblings have drifted away from each other. Seemingly out of the blue their father, Iris, a heart surgeon, decides to sell his family home in Beirut. After this sudden decision, the Nasr are reunited in Beirut. Close proximity reignites deep-rooted jealousies and brings to the light old family secrets and betrayals. Their feelings towards each other, and themselves, are complicated, messy. They bicker a lot, snitch on each other (often to their mother), and, in general, don't have the easiest time together. However, as Alyan so brilliantly demonstrates, family bonds, however thorny or challenging, can be a true source of happiness or comfort.

Their reunion in Beirut happens quite later on in the narrative. Before that, we delve into Ava, Mimi, and Naj's everyday realities. From their romantic relationships to their sex lives and careers. Alyan also provides us with glimpses into the lives of the people around them—their partners, colleagues, friends, bandmates—so that we end up with a rich cast of characters.
Each of the children reacts differently to their father's decision. Ava and Mimi are initially unwilling to go to Beirut but are ultimately worn down by their mother's unrelenting recriminations. Naj isn't particularly happy at the news either as she feels quite possessive of her life in Beirut.
The narrative then transports us to Damascus, in the 1960s. Their mother, Mazna, falls in love with the theatre and begins to dream about a future as a renowned actor. The Lebanese Civil War is the background to Mazna's chapters which heavily focus on her acting experiences. She befriends Idris, aka her future husband, who is Syrian and his close friend Zakaria, who is Palestinian and lives in a refugee camp.
The remainder of the novel moves between the present, with the family reunited in Beirut, and the past, where we read of Mazna and Idris' early days of marriage and of their eventual migration to California.

Most of the characters make bad choices, they hurt the ones they love, they are unsatisfied by the direction their lives are taking (both Mazna and Mimi's careers never truly resemble what they'd envisioned), and they either cheat or are cheated on. I appreciated how each character has to deal with failure or heartbreak, either as a direct consequence of their actions or due to circumstances out of their control. I also liked how realistic the children's relationship with one another was. Alyan gives her characters both individual and shared history, which makes them feel all the more authentic. Alyan also brings her settings to life, for better or worse.
What felt a tad unnecessary was the extensive forays into Mazna's past. She wasn't a particularly likeable or sympathetic character (my favourite was probably Harper, Mimi's Texan girlfriend). For their flaws, I found myself much more interested in the lives of her children.
The story at times felt a tad too melodramatic, especially in regards to certain 'revelations and all that cheating. I swear the Nasrs' are a family of cheaters. It got kind of repetitive (wow, quelle surprise, someone is cheating/being cheated on, yet again).
Despite all that, I remained enthralled by Alyan's storytelling and piercing observations. Her dialogues ring true to life and the character dynamics are very compelling.
With the tone of Elif Shafak The Saint of Incipient Insanities and the scope of Roopa Farooki's The Good Children, The Arsonists' City offers its readers with a captivating and intricate family saga, populated by nuanced characters and deeply rooted in Lebanon and Syria's histories and cultures. In spite of its length (the audiobook is over 19 hours) The Arsonists' City proved to be a gripping read one that I might even re-read.

The Arsonists’ City is a family drama saga taking place in Beruit and all across the United States. It is very character driven and focuses in depth of each character. It tells the tale of the Nasr family - the children and the parents, moving between present day and the past of how the parents met. I think that the emotional depth of human emotion was captured quite well. The writing was very beautiful and poetic.

I did like this however I did think it was a little too long and slow for my liking. I’m more of someone who likes fast paced but I can enjoy a character driven novel from time to time. The sibling dynamic and interpersonal relationships are explored in depth.

Thank you to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really good multi-generational family story. It is very character driven as most family stories are. And it is full of secrets and hidden desires.

You get multi- povs and you follow them from Lebanon, Syria, and to the United States. You also get a glimpse into the struggles people from the Middle East face when they come to the United States.

Each family member seems to be struggling with their own problems as is the case in most families. And they all hold themselves accountable for murder that happens at the beginning of the book. And as the book progresses you find out why.

I really enjoyed this book and I think anyone who enjoys character-driven family stories will as well.

Thank you Netgalley and Houghton Miffilin Harcourt  for this eARC.

When I saw that Hala Alyan had a new book coming out, I was excited to get to it as I loved Salt Houses. This is another wonderfully done family drama set in the Middle East, a place that feels so exotic (to me) and one to which I'm drawn. I really liked how Alyan introduced us to the children first and then we get the mother, Mazna's, story. She had a really interesting story but I also like how the family works it's way through emotional issues throughout to the end. It's a slow burn, character-driven story.

This book was astonishingly beautiful. I loved it from the start. Each of the characters was so incredibly developed and fleshed out. The dramatic irony that played out in the long middle chapter about Mazna and Zakaria kept me on edge the entire time, and I was completely hooked. The storylines dovetailed incredibly, and as the whole picture came together throughout the book, I was enraptured. I do not have enough kind things to say about it!!! The writing was beautiful, and the story was just gorgeous and impeccably crafted.

A quick summary that does not do this book justice:
Lebanese family patriarch and heart surgeon, Idris (now living in California), decides to sell his childhood home after the death of his father. Idris’ far-flung family gathers in Beirut for a belated memorial and to duke it out over the contentious sale of the house. With everyone under one roof for the first time in years, the various complications of the family’s relationships predictably come to a head.

I loved this book so much. I happily ate it up but was also anxious when I was almost finished because I wanted SO MUCH more. Every single character in this book was wonderfully drawn. In most novels with alternating perspectives, I generally look forward to one character’s sections more than others (or occasionally I dread one). That was not the case here, I loved everyone. There is a passage in that describes perfectly how I feel about the book:

“Films make people sad, Mazna is slowly understanding. They remind people of a time that is over or a time they’ve never been part of. Even the happier films, like Sabrina and The Wizard of Oz, sadden her; she will never go to those glossy dinner parties, see those Technicolor skies.”

I am so sad that I will never be a part of this family!

I was not aware the author (Hala Alyan) was a poet, but it makes perfect sense after reading lines like these:

“There was a lyric he almost wrote once but didn’t; he knew it would get him in trouble. It was about Harp’s eyes, how sometimes they looked like the scales of a fish he should’ve returned to the water.”

and:

“Fee looks at her with that grateful expression and Naj remembers rather than notices the freckles spattered across her nose.”

I always love generational trauma as a theme in books, and it is definitely present here. The Body Keeps the Score is a book that taught me so much, and these lines were a beautiful callback to that book for me (and also nods to the author’s psychology background):

“Naj dangles a leg out in front of her, rotates her ankle. She broke it years ago, and it still hurts sometimes. That’s because the body does a lot of remembering for us, her father once told her.”

and:

“What does it mean?” she asks. “My hand on my throat.” “We carry our guilt there,” Kit says. “The guilt of what we’ve done and the guilt of what’s been done to us.”

I wouldn’t change a single thing about this story, but the final revelation from Idris in the last section of the book (no spoilers here) really did break my heart. How different would everyone’s lives have been with a little more honesty? Obviously, it wouldn’t have been the same book. The deceptions were necessary in order to explore the themes of guilt, atonement, and unconditional love. But along with each character, it was a little bittersweet to consider “What if?”

There was one thing that drove me absolutely bonkers, however. Typos. I flipped back and forth between an eGalley and a finished copy of this book, and they were present in both. I think it is really a shame how many times I came across the word Mazda in place of the character name Mazna. It happens at least five times. A simple find and replace would have gone a long way. It seems like it's an unfortunate case of AutoCorrect not recognizing a name and changing it to a similar and common brand name (which is why I’m guessing it did not also happen to names like Idris and Zakaria and Rayan??). There were a few other errors as well, but the Mazna/Mazda error was especially tragic, especially since the errors made it into the finished copy.

The Arsonists’ City was Belletrist’s March 2021 pick. This was a family story about a Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and their three American adult children. The family reunites in Beirut after Idris declares his intent to sell his family home after the death of his father.

This book had a really interesting structure. We first get the perspectives from all three children in present time: Ava, a mother in Brooklyn, Mimi, a restaurant manager and amateur musician in Austin, and Naj, a successful musician in Beirut. Then we switch back to the past and learn more about the matriarch, Mazna, and how she met her husband Idris. The story then continues to rotate between the present and the past following two storylines.

It was very interesting to read it set up this way, because we know the result of what happens to Mazna, but as her story unfolds it made me even more intrigued to figure out how she got to where she is today.

The emotions in this book were so heavy. There was so much betrayal and jealousy to unpack, and many, many secrets. This book was more of a slow burn rather than a page turner, but I really enjoyed getting into the nitty gritty of the characters and feeling what made them the way they were.

Overall, it did feel a tad long. I feel like Mazna’s story could have carried the whole book, with her children coming through from her perspective. Their stories were a little overkill with everything else already happening. But I was still entertained by their lives and individual problems so I wouldn’t say it was a huge problem.

I always love reading about different cultures and settings so I definitely delighted in the scenes from the Middle East, but I almost wish there was more explanation about “the war”. It made me want to learn more but I wish this was more of a historical fiction piece so I could have learned more while reading.

Although I can’t say this will be a favorite book of mine, I would still recommend it especially if you were looking for something with this type of setting.

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an ARC of this book.

This book took me a long time to get into. And even then, it felt a lot longer than it needed to be. That's not to say that it's not a good book - it is; it's a very good book. But I have to conclude it could have been twice as good if it were a third shorter. The word saga is often used for these multi-generational historic novels but I have to say I wasn't always using the S-word in a positive sense.

As somebody who tried for many years to go to Lebanon and Syria (and has been to many other countries in that region), I never managed to get there because one or other country always seemed to be fighting with one or more of its neighbours (or in the case of Lebanon, they seemed adept at fighting with themselves if nobody else was up for a conflict). This is a region I really want to know better, and I enjoyed reading about how life had treated both the well-to-do (as exemplified by Idris and his parents), the not so well-off such as Mazna, and the decidedly disadvantaged who lived in the refugee camps (Zakaria and his family). What I didn't really get was a sense of the history of conflict in the region - the times and dates all just seemed to merge.

The book kicks off with patriarch Idris planning to sell the family home in Beirut, leading his wife to gather his children in a campaign to stop him. So why is the house so important to his wife who never really lived there? What secrets has she been hiding all these years? And his children all have their relationship and career disasters that tangentially touch on the old house. Next thing we know, we've shot back nearly 40 years to find out how Mazna met Idris and became mother to their three children. Honestly, this bit really felt like it dragged. She's not a very likeable character - young, selfish, entitled, and prone to exploiting those around her. Was she supposed to be the main character of the book? I'm still not entirely sure but I felt she got way more airtime than I'd have wanted.

The younger generation has not followed 'traditional' routes. One is married to a well-off American man, another dates a Texan, and the third - the only one living in Lebanon - is living well outside societal 'norms'.

The title's a bit weird. There is a fire but it didn't feel significant enough to have given the book its name. There are more assassins than arsonists. Just an observation.

It's a good book. I enjoyed parts of it very much, but I still stand by my belief that it was way longer than it needed to be. I started this book 3 times over before I finally got into it. It's worth the effort but be warned, it's not a quick read.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy.

Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcout and NetGalley for the Reader's Copy!

Now available!

Hala Alyan's second novel, "The Arsonists' City", is a delectable, savory family drama based in Lebanon and Syria. When Idris Nasr decides to sell his father's house in Lebanon, even he can't predict the secrets that will be unearthed in the centuries old property. Nasr is joined by his family from across the globe - his cinematic wife Mazna, his daughter microbiologist Ave, spurned bassist turned restaurant manager Mimi, and his rockstar daughter Najla. As the novel unspools, Alyan takes readers on a journey through old Lebanon and Syria, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the region.

I could not stop reading this addictive drama! The characters have such complexity and the descriptions of 1960s Syria and Lebanon were transformative and breathtaking. The plot twists were somewhat predictable but somehow this only endeared the novel even more. Reading Arsonist's City felt like walking into a warm cafe and eating fresh baklava with the honey just about set. It is inviting, a little bit crunchy with the drama and ultimately comforting. I am eagerly waiting to devour another Hala Alyan novel!

This book has strong themes of family, even when we do something that others' don't necessarily approve of. The author does a nice job of having all the characters be well-rounded and exploring the motivations between each.

The story is fantastic, full of family drama, love, confrontational children, marriages that have partners with secrets and hidden desires, etc. The mother of the family is overprotective and still provides for her 30-something year old son that already has his own family. The mother does not approve of the way her adult children may live but she is still loving and also she is in dire need of their company.
I hope that people think that the book was a delight. I really enjoyed it and I think the author did a great job of describing each character from their own perspective, she wrote about their wants, needs, fears, what makes them sad or angry, etc. This book is definitely a must-read.

-Rebeca

The Arsonists' City is beautiful story of an immigrant family and their time between Lebanon, Syria and the United State. We got to walk through parents' lives and then land on their children's. Story starts with father wanting to sell the house he grew up in Beirut after his father passed away. It sparked a whole lot of other things that were hidden in everyone's lives.

It took me wayyyy too long to get into the story and I found majority of the events very predictable, but somehow I was shedding few tears at the end. Knowing about the area, its history and its culture, I was able to pick up a lot of things possible most readers won't pick up or pretend that they know better. I can see people looking at this story from west vs. east perspective, but it's nothing but a generational family tale with a lot of secrets that most families would have but never surface

I loved how realistic the story was. It didn't hide any part of the family's daily life or sugarcoat areas where people might find disturbing, inappropriate, etc... But that's what literature needs to do. You don't want to talk about sex? Well, you go ahead and don't. You don't want to talk about abortion? You go ahead and don't You don't want to talk about religion? You go ahead and don't. But this book and many more like this are going to keep talking about it. Because they are part of our lives and even fiction will be realistic when it's portraying people. Anyways... If you like generational fiction with dash of contemporary feel, go for it!

As we say in Arabic, Time doesn't change; time reveals.

In the novel The Arsonists' City, Hala Alyan presents a complicated situation for an extended family in which a Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three first-generation American children with an ancestral home in Beirut come to terms with deep loss. They return to Beirut, each broken in a way, each searching for home, fulfillment, history, peace, or all of the above, as they attempt to pull together again.

With plenty of secrets, messy interpersonal family interactions, love, and loss--all against a background of Beirut, a city shaped by and "smoldering with the legacy of war," as well as the refugee camps and life in Damascus.

Mazna and Idris's family also considers the dichotomy of the privilege they enjoy in Beirut, with a live-in housekeeper in their comfortable home, and the prejudice they experience in the United States--as well as the hierarchy of "brown" there:

In America they are considered brown... There is something self-righteous that lives alongside that marginalization, the mispronounced names, the Your English is so..., the sideways glances in department stores. But there are browner bodies out there. There are women who take care of your grandfather...women whose own families are thousands of miles away, women who are washing your plates and washing vegetables for your dinner.

The story is told in two timelines, one as young Idris and Mazna are brought together by tragedy and build their life together upon secrets, and the second during the family's imperfect reunion in Beirut. There are tragic lies and lies of omission, mistakes, missed chances, and moments that drastically change the fates of multiple families and generations. Characters cope with lost dreams, fading possibilities, boredom, and disappointment, but they also clumsily come together, fighting through pain, working through misunderstanding, and forgiving each other for terrible offenses. There are funny, tangled, heartwarming exchanges. The vibrancy of Beirut is especially present throughout--the story celebrates the city's music, art, and love.

I received a prepublication copy of this book courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley.

I mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/3/21 Edition.

Alyan is also the author of Salt Houses, You're Not a Girl in a Movie, and The Twenty-Ninth Year.

If you love family sagas, The Arsonists' City is going to grab you from page one and never let you go. There are a lot of secrets to unpack and characters to feel a lot of things about and for. I highly recommend!

This was a truly beautiful story, interweaving the lives of perspectives of different family members over the course of decades, starting with one fateful summer in 1978. It was slow to unfold, but eventually picked up and deepened. Alyan captures grief, loss, hope, and love in breath-taking ways, while also telling a story of war and immigration.

Alyan is a wonderful writer. I loved Salt Houses and I have to say I loved this too. I loved how this tale spanned numerous generations and multiple countries. The insight into the lives of middle easterners was fascinating. I loved Manza and really loved Haj too. Mimi too was very likeable although lived in his sister's shadow at times. This story was slow yet much happened so it was very boring, it never dragged. I was surprised often by unexpected events and I really enjoyed following the characters growth and changes. This really is an enjoyable read, one that has stayed with me and will do for a long time to come. I highly recommend it.

From the nucleus of one family, The Arsonists’ City is a novel that spins out between decades and countries. Idris and Mazna met in the 1970s. He lived in Beirut and was studying to be a doctor and she was a young actress living with her family in Damascus. Decades later they are settled in America with three grown children. The death of Idris’s father means he’s inherited the family home. The situation is a fraught one and necessitates a return to Beirut, a place that holds very different meanings for each of the family members.

The Beirut home, having been in the family for generations, is the centrifugal force in The Arsonists’ City. It’s where Mazna visited to be with Idris and his friends, escaping the boredom of Damascus. Yet, Idris, now a heart surgeon, has decided the house must be sold, despite the relatives he still has living there. Their daughter, Naj, who is a famous musician in the Middle East and Europe, even lives in the city. For her siblings, returning is a matter of duty as neither Ava or her brother, Mimi, feel any ties to the place. A rock musician whose career never took off and now flounders on the edges of embarrassing, Mimi resents his baby sister’s success. Ava, the dutiful oldest child, goes along for her mother’s sake, although she’s dealing with fissures in her marriage.

This is a rough template of The Arsonists’ City because the novel’s grace lies in the details. Author Hala Alyan brings seemingly disparate elements together into a rich and satisfying whole. There is a prologue in which an unnamed man is murdered in one of Beirut’s Palestinian refugee camps, followed in the first chapter with a graphic sex scene between Ava and her husband. The effect of moving so quickly between the moment of death and that of intimacy sets the tone for the entire novel. This is the reality of the Middle East. There is no separating the personal from the political. Upon arriving back in Lebanon Ava realizes that this is a

…godforsaken country where even the birds warred with each other.

In this way, the larger tragedy of decades of displacement and discrimination of the Palestinians is overlaid on the smaller dynamics of siblings, spouses, and the individual. The Arsonists’ City is at once one family’s story with hidden truths, dreams dashed, and secrets kept and an immersion into the impact of regional politics and religion. Alyan alchemizes the intimate with the global for a novel that is moving and thought-provoking.

I closed the book and wanted to rest overnight with my thoughts before reviewing. At a point when I was struggling with its pacing, there came an ominous line in the novel, “Time doesn’t change; time reveals.” It encouraged patience; to wait for the revelations -- I took the advice literally and in doing so, I am satisfied with the outcome.

At its core, a couple from Lebanon grapples with the promise of a new beginning in California amid subtle microaggressions, culture shock, and the ongoing stress of navigating in ‘white’ spaces. Their children are not spared and meet their own assimilation challenges. Thus, in that regard, The Arsonists’ City contains threads of familiarity for those who have read any recent “coming to America” exposes. It is a character-driven novel with chapters focusing on each family member’s point of view, their secrets, hopes, dreams, loves, losses, and insecurities, and how that shapes their interaction with each other.

The author really gave us fully developed, yet creatively flawed characters situated within a highly complex family dynamic headed by a manipulative and self-absorbed matriarch. Their familial ties are further strained with their father’s decision to sell the ancestral home - an act that requires the entire family to reluctantly return to Beirut with the intent to change his mind. It is here the past meets the future -- marital bonds are tested, repressed feelings are exposed, and unpleasant truths come to light.

While I enjoyed my time with the Nasr clan, I really enjoyed the history, cultural, and political aspects of the region. I thought some parts were a bit overwritten (especially the segments with Mazna, the mother). Recommended to those who love rich family sagas. This was my first read with this author and will definitely move her debut novel up on my TBR list.

Happy Pub Day to The Arsonists' City...⁣
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Book Review⁣
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"A house divided cannot stand."⁣
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This is first and foremost a generational famaily saga BUT with Hala Alyan writing it it becomes something more...something unique and special. Alyan knows how to write characters that resonate and leap off the page. What amazes me about her writing (she also did this in Salt Houses) is she allows her characters to drive the plot with insight on geographical and political issues in a way that anyone can understand. ⁣
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Summary⁣
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.⁣
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Each chapter is a different child: Ava, Mimi, and Naj with flashbacks of their mother's life. The stories intricately come together and so serious drama begins to unfold. Aside from one section that to me was too long, this book flew. I will read whatever Alyan writes.⁣
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Thank you @netgalley and @houghtonmifflinharcourt for this free copy in exchange for my honest review 💜⁣
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I highly recommend picking this one and Salt Houses up soon!⁣

Beautifully-written, this novel spans a family’s lives set in Lebanon, Beruit, Syria, as well as within the US. Although I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, I related to feelings that were the focus of each including identity, guilt, regrets, love, friendship, and trauma. This novel is long - perhaps too long for some - but I enjoyed every word describing these characters and their lives. I love when a book’s setting is like another character - and this one did just that. Repeatedly.

I highly recommend this one. It would be great for a book discussion group.

Thanks to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin for the advanced copy. I’m so grateful.