The memoir by Palestinian American poet and novelist Hala Alyan, whose experience of motherhood via surrogacy forces her to reckon with her own past, and the legacy of her family’s exile and displacement, all in the name of a new future.
Gorgeous, lyrical ... Examines with a poet’s precision the many ways in which storytelling is rooted in matriarchy, carrying messages between mothers and daughters as a means of survival ... In such scenes of compelling intimacy, the author’s narrative gifts shine through, the brief fragments making for quick, propulsive reading. At times, however, the collagelike structure threatens to disrupt the gravity of any one passage, with so many descriptions of the author’s prophetic dreams in the latter chapters that it’s difficult for a single narrative thread to cohere in the end. But perhaps this multiplicity of stories and selves is exactly what Alyan intends ... Shows the power of even a single narrative to resist the deliberate erasure of a people and their homeland, the violence of colonization.
Poignant ... Her poetic background resonates throughout the memoir, with fluid prose that conveys her desperate longing to become a mother ... In a stunning kaleidoscope of vignettes, she narrates scenes from her own life and those of her family ... Her background as a clinical psychologist is evident in her insightful analysis of the human psyche. She tears apart the myths and facades we carry about ourselves to expose the raw emotions underneath. She reveals the universal nature of human experience, making us feel inextricably connected to her ... A moving tribute to the strength of those forced from their homelands and ruthlessly exploited, as well as a celebration of women’s determination to survive and thrive despite violence and oppression.
Alyan’s sharp descriptions of her alienation from and desperate playing along with the male doctors charged with overseeing her reproductive health may provoke jolts of recognition in readers who have passed through similar trials) ... In reading I’ll Tell You When I’m Home, I found it difficult to empathize with Alyan’s depiction of her husband, though whether this was the result of my general allergy to male obliviousness (born of long personal experience) or the narrator’s need to shield certain aspects of his biography, I cannot say. While the pregnancy Alyan describes is shared between three people (four, if one counts the baby-to-be), what fascinates in this memoir is Alyan’s own story.
