Home is a moving target in Hala Alyan’s memoir I’ll Tell You When I’m Home

📚 Hailed as one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 and Electric Lit's Best Nonfiction of 2025, Hala Alyan’s latest memoir, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home, asks whether home is a place, a person, or simply a story passed from one generation to the next. What begins as a memoir about infertility unfolds into a poignant meditation on home, memory, and the stories we leave behind.

The premise: When Hala Alyan sets out to write I’ll Tell You When I’m Home, she begins with a simple question: How do you become a mother when your body keeps refusing to cooperate?

The memoir follows Alyan through years of infertility, miscarriages, IVF treatments, surgeries, and the emotional toll that accompanies each setback. Eventually, she turns to surrogacy, partnering with a Canadian woman named Dee in the hope of finally bringing a child into the world.

But motherhood is only one piece of the puzzle. Rather than unfolding chronologically, the memoir moves between fertility clinics and family history, weaving together memories of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, and the US. Along the way, Alyan explores marriage, addiction, displacement, grief, and the complicated idea of home. The result is less a linear memoir than a collection of interconnected stories, all orbiting around loss, inheritance, and belonging.

What we liked: What could have been a straightforward memoir about infertility becomes something much richer in Alyan’s hands. Alyan writes with a lyrical, deeply introspective voice that feels both intimate and expansive. Her prose is packed with recurring images, family anecdotes, and reflections that gradually reveal the larger themes at play. The book’s non-linear structure may require some patience, but it mirrors the way memory actually works: one thought leading unexpectedly to another, the past constantly resurfacing in the present.

The memoir is particularly compelling when Alyan draws parallels between personal and collective loss. As a Palestinian-American woman raised across multiple countries, she repeatedly returns to questions of displacement and identity, linking her struggles with infertility to broader conversations about homeland, inheritance, and what we pass on to future generations. Perhaps most impressively, Alyan resists easy sentimentality. Even as the memoir moves toward motherhood, she avoids presenting her daughter’s arrival as a neat resolution to years of heartbreak. The pain remains part of the story, making the eventual joy feel earned rather than inevitable.

The verdict: At its heart, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home is less about having a child than it is about building a home — through stories, memories, family histories, and the people we carry with us. Readers looking for a straightforward account of surrogacy may find themselves surprised by how much ground Alyan covers. Equal parts memoir, family archive, and love letter to future generations, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home lingers long after the final page.

WHERE TO FIND IT- The memoir is available at Diwan, or you can get the e-book on Kobo.