**"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, 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).
