This novel follows Tammar, an Israeli woman who sorts out her parents' papers after their sudden death and realizes that the city council is after the house in Jaffa where she grew up. In a corruption scheme aimed at selling the land to a developer for fancy apartment buildings, the council does not recognize Tammar's family’s right to the house, which was allocated to them when the family arrived in the early days of the state—nor does it recognize the original documents of some of their Arab neighbors, who have had them since the mandate period, or those for Tammar's house that her Palestinian husband's family still holds, having fled Jaffa because of the war. What follows is a story of collective action and a fledgling dialogue that becomes possible between individual people when they dare to look behind the narratives in which they were raised.

At first I was a little annoyed because it seemed to be that kind of story where different elements are gathered just to symbolize something, not as they would realistically appear in a single person's life. Here, for example, Tammar is pregnant, AND her parents die in a terrorist attack, AND her brothers are in conflict so she has to mediate (as one of them is ultra-Orthodox), AND she is married to a Palestinian, AND his family happened to live in the same house before 1948. (Okay, the latter, the least probable coincidence, is explained in a realistically-ish way, after all.) But then, I guess, it depends on what all those elements are bundled for. In some stories, it's purely for angst, and then it's annoying. In others, however, it is to explore ideas. Here, mostly ideas about place attachment and belonging (of places to people and people to places), as well as introducing English-speaking readers to some key dichotomies of Israeli society, with a focus on the condition of Arab citizens of Israel.

(BTW, if anybody reading this is interested in additional titles exploring the reduced civic rights of Arab citizens of Israel, I highly recommend everything by Sayyed Kashua; I think many of his novels are now translated into English.)

The story is set in 2022–2023, and while it's not at all rosy about the possibilities of intergroup solidarity, it already feels like a historic document, as, clearly, things have gone even further south while the book was in preparation for publication.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. The impressions above are my own.

Tammar and her husband Ali find themselves in partial possession of Tammar's parents' house after their sudden deaths, and Tammar gets drawn into a legal battle to save the house from a shady development deal. The house draws together Palestinians from Ali's side and Jews from Tammar's side to work together in ways that challenge the institutional racism both sides have come to accept and no longer even notice otherwise.
I am used to thinking of the Israel/Palestine area as just an unresolvable, perpetually violent mess at this point, and most fiction set in the area reinforces that idea. This book is situated in that same mess, but despite all that it finds a way to build hope for a better future. That is hard enough to earn at least a 4 star rating by itself. And, since this book was written with an English-speaking readership in mind, there is enough background to not be too overwhelming or confusing, while also not resorting to info-dumping and bogging down the story. There is even a glossary for folks who need it for the non-English words. The only thing I would add is recipes. The characters spend so much time talking about food, so a few recipes for the foods mentioned in the story would be great, including some traditionally associated with Jewish/Israeli and Palestinian food culture.
Excellent book, and one that I'd not be surprised to see nominated for book prizes.

Ugh, what a book! So beautifully written and so emotional. I loved it so much. The characters are so well developed. The author shows us here how grief can hurt so deeply but also heal and restore. Such a beautiful and emotional story.