Keynote
A harrowing, poetic, and autobiographic account of growing up with a tyrannical father in a war-torn coutnry.
Book Title
A House at the Edge of Tears
Cover Image
- “Khoury-Ghata paints an effectively stylized picture of tyrannical psychosis as it destroys a family, informed by the larger destruction of Lebanese society during the protracted civil war.”—Publishers Weekly
Body
The thought of killing him never crossed my mind. I want to bury him alive.
In the city of Beirut, five shabby dwellings circle a courtyard with a pomegranate tree weeping blood red fruit. The residents hear screams in the night as a boy is tossed out into the street by his father—a punishment for masturbating in his sleep. A crime not worthy of the punishment: the neighbors gossip and decide that he must have tried to rape his sisters. “Small-boned with long, silky lashes, no one but the devil could camouflage evil so seductively.” The poems he writes are perhaps an even greater crime to his father, but ultimately a gift to his eldest sister, who narrates their story with a combination of brutal truth and stunning prose. As her brother becomes more and more lost to his family and to himself, we also learn of a Contessa who teaches tango, a family who spends every Sunday in search of buried treasure, and the miracle of a weeping Madonna statue that cries when human tears run dry.
In this harrowing and mesmerizing novel, celebrated novelist and poet, Khoury-Ghata, presents the disintegration of a family and a country—both ruled by a fury fueled by fear.
In the city of Beirut, five shabby dwellings circle a courtyard with a pomegranate tree weeping blood red fruit. The residents hear screams in the night as a boy is tossed out into the street by his father—a punishment for masturbating in his sleep. A crime not worthy of the punishment: the neighbors gossip and decide that he must have tried to rape his sisters. “Small-boned with long, silky lashes, no one but the devil could camouflage evil so seductively.” The poems he writes are perhaps an even greater crime to his father, but ultimately a gift to his eldest sister, who narrates their story with a combination of brutal truth and stunning prose. As her brother becomes more and more lost to his family and to himself, we also learn of a Contessa who teaches tango, a family who spends every Sunday in search of buried treasure, and the miracle of a weeping Madonna statue that cries when human tears run dry.
In this harrowing and mesmerizing novel, celebrated novelist and poet, Khoury-Ghata, presents the disintegration of a family and a country—both ruled by a fury fueled by fear.
List Price
$12.00
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About the Author
Credit: Anne Selders
Credit: Margaretta K. Mitchell
Praise
- “In this small, poetic novel resides the fury, despair, shame, and love of a book ten times its size.”—Library Journal
- “[Khoury-Ghata] untangles her brother’s story…Words roll like pebbles in a river as sentences open like umbrellas.”—Beirut Daily Star
- "A spellbinding tale of exquisite prose."—Sanford Herald
