THIS CAUGHT ME EYE …
“Salt Houses,” the debut novel by Palestinian-American poet Hala Alyan, is generating a good bit of early buzz, in part because it explores a theme right out of today’s headlines: the Palestinian diaspora and the search for home.
In 1967, in the Palestinian city of Nablus, Salma reads the future of her daughter, Alia, in a cup of coffee dregs. The omens look good, but they don’t pan out, as Salma and her family are quickly uprooted by the Six-Day War. Alia and her husband end up in Kuwait City, but they and their children are forced to leave in 1991 when Iraq invades Kuwait. Family members scatter to Beruit, Paris, and Boston, reflecting a bitter truth: You can’t go home again.
Alyan, of Brooklyn, reads from “Salt Houses” Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley. www.odysseybks.com
AND THIS …
One of the area’s newer community musical groups is The Valley Winds, which in its own words is an “artistically driven ensemble with an emphasis on community relevance.” The 45-plus members, who combine on brass, woodwinds, piano, bass and percussion, formed a couple years ago and “strive to be relevant to the people of Western Massachusetts,” in part by offering shows at modest prices.
On Saturday at 7:30 p.m., the group plays Northampton’s Academy of Music, where it will perform Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” as well as works by Wilder, Ticheli and others. Acclaimed Israel pianist and composer Yoni Levyatov is a guest performer. www.aomtheatre.com.
AND THIS …
How often do you see a film from Romania? Opening Friday at the Amherst Cinema, “Graduation” is a tense drama about a father pushed to the edge to protect his teenage daughter, who’s on the verge of winning a prestigious scholarship to study in England. The New York Times calls it “a rigorously naturalistic film [that’s] nerve-racking and humane.” amherstcinema.org