50 pages • 1 hour read
Salt Houses
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Souad”
In August 1990, Souad is living in Paris with her aunt Mimi while attending an arts program focused on textiles and painting. Her parents had initially refused to allow her to study abroad, and it was only after much arguing and Mimi’s promise to look after the girl that she was able to move. She wakes to the television. Since the Gulf War began, she sleeps only fitfully and at odd hours. Like everyone else in the household, she is glued to any news of the conflict. Her friend Elie has lived in Paris on and off for his entire life, and she marvels at how sophisticated he and her cousins seem. In Paris, she feels old-fashioned and dowdy, although in Kuwait she had been stylish and modern.
The war has thrown everything into upheaval. Her brother’s studies have been disrupted, and he is considering studying architecture in the United States. Her mother and father leave Kuwait City for the safety of Amman, and they want Souad to join them there. She would prefer to remain in Paris. She loves the freedom she has to go out, sit in cafes, smoke, and make her own decisions. She loves its intellectualism and its cosmopolitanism.
Coverage of the outbreak of war in Kuwait dominates the news, and everywhere she goes, Souad encounters stories about the destruction happening in her hometown. Elie suggests that they marry so that they can remain in Paris, and although at first she is shocked by his proposal, she realizes that marriage might be her best option. She feels a sort of detachment rather than love for Elie: He can be verbose, and his intellectualism is often irritating. She is not sure that she wants to be his wife, but she is sure that she does not want to live with her mother again. She decides to say yes.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Riham”
In October 1999, Riham’s son Abdullah is now in college, and she is fairly happy running her household in Amman. She thrives on to-do lists, order, and schedules, and is proud of her husband for his work as a physician, although she does sometimes resent the fact that he treats refugees and their families in their home. Riham’s father, now retired, visits her each morning, and the two have tea together. On this particular day, he shares news of a disagreement between her mother and her brother Karam. Karam and Souad both live in Boston and although the two are close with each other, they bicker constantly with their mother. Alia resents her children for moving so far away. She is rarely able to visit with her grandchildren, she does not entirely approve of either of their spouses, and she is upset with them for having used their inheritance from her childless sister Widad to buy properties in Beirut and Boston rather than in Amman. Riham feels that her mother is too harsh on her siblings, but she also feels shut out of their relationship. Next to Souad and Karam she feels dowdy and boring. She gets along much better with their children when she does have the opportunity to see them.
Alia calls Riham to complain about Karam and his wife Budur. They cannot visit because Budur is pursuing a doctoral degree in literature, a subject that Alia thinks is a waste of time. When Riham tries to change the subject by expressing worry about Abdullah’s political activities, her mother scoffs and says that Abdullah has been wayward for some time, and she is surprised that Riham is only now beginning to worry. During Souad and Karam’s most recent visit, Abdullah had vocally denounced them all for being more American than Arab and had said that from the comfort of their mansions, they really had no idea what life was like for the many people stuck in refugee camps. Karam and Souad had been taken aback and later whispered that Abdullah had sounded like a “jihadi.” Many of the young men in Amman are being swept up in various anti-Western political movements, and the talk amongst Riham’s friends has gradually shifted from concerns around babies and young children to the dangers that extremist ideology poses to young men.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Souad”
Souad is at her sister’s Beirut apartment in June 2004 with her children Manar and Zain and her mother Alia. She and her husband Elie are no longer together. Her brother Karam, his wife, Budur, and their daughter Linah are staying in their own apartment in the same building. Alia detests Beirut, scathingly referring to it as a “city of whores” (205). Souad had wanted to leave the United States after the attacks of 9/11. There was a perceptible shift in the way that she and her family were treated, especially outside of the liberal enclave of Boston where they had been living. Suddenly they were the targets of suspicion. In Beirut, she is marked as Palestinian by her accent, and she feels as though her life and her identity make more sense. She feels like she is at home. Souad had been unhappy almost immediately after marrying Elie. Their life in Paris had become dull. Elie had a whole world outside of their apartment, but Souad did not. They began to argue, and the discord between them ultimately defined their entire relationship. Souad had missed her family and home.
Their lives in Boston had initially been better. Souad was happy to leave Paris, and they had the task of raising their two small children to occupy their time. However, their arguments had only intensified and ultimately Elie had left. After the divorce, Souad struggled. She worries now that her daughter Manar bore the burden of her unhappiness. She feels disconnected from Manar, and although her family members assure her that this is typical for all parents and their children at a certain age, Souad is unconvinced. Despite her unhappiness about the divorce and the precarity of her part-time position teaching at the American University in Beirut, Souad is happy to be back in a region of the world where she feels more at home and surrounded, once again, by family. She and her mother still bicker occasionally, but Souad reflects that she is where she belongs and that her mother can at least take comfort now in her newfound proximity to her grandchildren.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
This section of chapters opens with multiple mentions of the war in Kuwait. The impact of the war in Kuwait is twofold: It grounds the narrative within yet another piece of important 20th-century Arab history, and it illustrates the fact that the Displacement and Diaspora of Palestinians persisted long after their initial exile from Palestine. The Yacoub family’s move from Nablus to Kuwait City is representative of the migratory trajectory of many Palestinians. Although the Gulf War, as it would come to be called, took place in Kuwait and not in Palestine, it further displaced many Palestinians who had relocated to places like Kuwait City. Like many members of the Palestinian diaspora, Atef and Alia will move from Kuwait City to Amman. Here too, Alyan inserts historical accuracy into her narrative; Atef and Alia’s repeated loss of the places they call home reflects the losses experienced by many displaced Palestinians.
The experiences of Souad and Karam in the early 2000s demonstrate that ongoing displacement was not experienced exclusively by members of the Palestinian diaspora in the Middle East. Souad and Karam move to the United States and raise their families in Boston, but wind up moving to Beirut due to the pervasive hostility towards Arabs in the United States in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Souad feels keenly her differences and misses living in a society where people resemble her and share her history, cultural values, and identity. Like her mother and grandmother, she is never truly comfortable in any of the places to which she moves. Souad’s struggles show that some aspects of the difficulty of life in the diaspora are consistent regardless of where members of the diaspora live. The only place they truly feel at home is with their family.
Alyan uses narrative voice to support the thematic structure of her novel, particularly the theme of Familial Bonds in Exile. By this point in the narrative, Alyan has introduced several different members of the Yacoub family in their own words, giving each person their own chapter to narrate. Their family history is only fully visible through a composite: To understand this family’s complexity and their many forced migrations, multiple voices must be listened to. Each family member’s point of view offers a different perspective on Palestinian identity and experience, and often the characters’ choices and beliefs conflict. Yet despite their conflicts and disagreements, each member of the Yacoub family grounds their lives and identities in their family and their people. One of the defining features of diasporic life, for instance, is remaining glued to the television to keep track of what is happening to distant family members, as Souad does when she is in Paris during the Gulf War. Alyan’s polyvocal narrative technique emphasizes the importance of family and family relationships within the diaspora while preserving the diversity of Palestinians’ experiences, beliefs, and lifestyles. It showcases the fact that, without a stable homeland, the Yacoub family has little else but memories, history, and one another, and that whatever forces might be pulling them apart, the family bond will always endure.
This section engages with another important piece of Arab socio-cultural experience: Abdullah’s burgeoning extremism. Although several members of the family draw connections between Abdullah’s anti-Western political activities and Mustafa’s Palestinian nationalism, Abdullah’s quasi-radicalization has another component. During the later decades of the 20th century, many young men in the Arab world fell victim to the promise of cultural cohesion that radical organizers used to lure young men into extremist cells. It is interesting to note that the Yacoub family’s reaction to the Six-Day War was largely to abandon politics. There is a sense that the Yacoubs just want to live their lives and focus on one another, and that they have little use for the politics of Arab-Israeli conflict. Several people comment on Abdullah’s political leanings and note how difficult it is “today,” particularly for young men in the Arab world, and everyone seems relieved when Abdullah moves past his political phase.
This set of chapters ends in Beirut, which further grounds the novel within the history of the Palestinian diaspora. Many Palestinian families have settled in Beirut since their expulsion from Palestine. As Souad notes, the climate there is multi-national, and it is common to find people with ancestry in multiple different Arab countries. Beirut becomes a space of community and of family bonding for the Yacoub family, and it is where Souad’s and Karam’s children, who are being raised in America, learn to speak better Arabic, spend time with their family, and learn about their Palestinian history and identity.
Unlock all 50 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: