Salt Houses

The enduring strength of family bonds in exile is another of this novel’s key themes. Although family relationships are in part how the characters heal from trauma, the importance of family goes beyond that: Family becomes the core of each character’s cultural and personal identity. In part because home and homeland shift so many times for the Yacoubs, family is their constant. It is from their relationships with one another that various members of the Yacoub family find strength and support, and it is through family that they keep their ties to the culture and history of Palestine alive even in exile.

Atef’s relationship with his children is a source of strength for Atef and Souad, Riham, and Karam. The family moves multiple times within the space of the narrative, from Nablus to Kuwait City to Amman and beyond. Because there is no stable and constant space of home, the bond that the children share with their father becomes the most stable, constant presence in their lives. As young children, he nurtures their interests and provides a buffer between them and their volatile mother, and as adolescents, he accepts their burgeoning personalities in a way that his wife cannot. As adults, when Souad and Karam immigrate to Boston, he continues to love them and maintain a fatherly connection. His bond with Riham is the strongest. In their shared interests and intellect, both Atef and Riham find a stronger sense of identity, both individual and familial. As differences of opinion, temperament, and lifestyle pull the Yacoubs apart, the members’ bond with Atef pulls them back together.

Familial resemblances are another important focal point within the novel. Because the Yacoub family has been forced out of their cultural homeland, many of its members struggle in various ways with identity and identification. It is harder to understand self-identity without the context that home cultures and home spaces provide. Atef shares intellectual pursuits with Riham, but that is not the only point of family resemblance on display. Souad and her mother share their fiery personality. Abdullah’s interest in politics harkens back to Mustafa. Riham shares a devout interest in Islam with her grandmother Salma. Even in their physical features, they are always finding resemblances. Looking at his daughter, Atef observes: “In Souad’s eyes the dead flicker, his father in the almond-shaped eyes, the color of wet bark” (93). In exile, these shared characteristics take on a deeper meaning: They help each family member to know who they are and to place themselves into an observable, identifiable family history. They provide proof of belonging in a world that has denied them a place.

In later years, as their sense of exile deepens, the family gathers each summer in Beirut. For the children growing up in America, these summers are especially important. Not only do they have the opportunity to get to know family members who still live in the Arab world, but they also have the opportunity to learn about their Palestinian cultural identity. They eat traditional foods and speak Arabic. In this way, it is through family that Souad’s and Karam’s children arrive at a greater sense of understanding about their familial, cultural, and historical identities. It is not just their presence in an Arab space that makes this possible, but rather their presence among their family members in an Arab space. For Manar, who goes to Palestine in the final chapter of the novel, visiting her family’s ancestral home in Jaffa provides the most powerful sense of connection to her ethnic identity, demonstrating that family bonds not only to each other but also to place endure even generations into exile.