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A review by gigireadswithkiki
I'll Tell You When I'm Home by Hala Alyan
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
There is just something so deeply human about the depth of emotion in Hala Alyan’s prose. It is present in their fictional stories, and it has translated so strongly into her memoir, making for an absolute devastation of a story.
Alyan makes no attempts to create structure into her memoir, which is one of my favorite parts of this story; everything is fluid stream of consciousness, drifting from thoughts of displacement to thoughts of addiction to thoughts of motherhood, vaguely intersecting these points at various points in the story of her life. This method of storytelling feels so organic, cutting deeper than a memoir author who demands their life be dissected and cut up into disparate sections for consumption. Alyan forces readers to grapple with the ways in which her alcoholism and her motherhood intersect, the way that these forces in her life have impacted her relationship with her husband, and as a whole tying this all back to her Palestinian heritage. Her prose is incredibly beautiful and fluid, nearly poetic at times, and I loved seeing the ways in which her own life story has influenced the characters she has chosen to write in “The Salt House” and “The Arsonist’s City”.
Upon each reflection upon her life and her life choices, Alyan makes no excuses for the choices she has made, presenting each life event in the midst of the context of her environment at the time, and even then, not fully granting readers the ability to fully excuse her actions. Her writing is candid and nuanced, providing reflections on her experiences while also granting herself the grace and brevity to have made those mistakes in her past. This is not a lighthearted story, nor should anyone expect it to be especially as a memoir of a Palestinian author, but this is without a doubt one of my favorite memoirs to date. Hala Alyan is truly one of the best authors of our time, and I deeply look forward to reading whatever she chooses to write next.
Alyan makes no attempts to create structure into her memoir, which is one of my favorite parts of this story; everything is fluid stream of consciousness, drifting from thoughts of displacement to thoughts of addiction to thoughts of motherhood, vaguely intersecting these points at various points in the story of her life. This method of storytelling feels so organic, cutting deeper than a memoir author who demands their life be dissected and cut up into disparate sections for consumption. Alyan forces readers to grapple with the ways in which her alcoholism and her motherhood intersect, the way that these forces in her life have impacted her relationship with her husband, and as a whole tying this all back to her Palestinian heritage. Her prose is incredibly beautiful and fluid, nearly poetic at times, and I loved seeing the ways in which her own life story has influenced the characters she has chosen to write in “The Salt House” and “The Arsonist’s City”.
Upon each reflection upon her life and her life choices, Alyan makes no excuses for the choices she has made, presenting each life event in the midst of the context of her environment at the time, and even then, not fully granting readers the ability to fully excuse her actions. Her writing is candid and nuanced, providing reflections on her experiences while also granting herself the grace and brevity to have made those mistakes in her past. This is not a lighthearted story, nor should anyone expect it to be especially as a memoir of a Palestinian author, but this is without a doubt one of my favorite memoirs to date. Hala Alyan is truly one of the best authors of our time, and I deeply look forward to reading whatever she chooses to write next.