The
House of Youssef is a collection of short stories
set in Western Sydney. The stories explore the lives of Lebanese migrants who
have settled in the area, circling around themes of isolation, family and community,
and nostalgia for the home country. In particular, House of Youssef is about relationships, and the customs which complicate
them: between parents and children, the dark secrets of marriage, the breakable
bonds between friends. The stories are told with extreme minimalism — some are
only two pages long — which heightens their emotional intensity.
The collection is framed by two soliloquies. The first expresses the
longing of an old man for the homeland he will never return to. The second is the
monologue of a woman, who could be his wife, addressed to her daughter, about
life and its disappointments. The two
central sequences are composed of vignettes which focus on moments of domestic crisis,
and which combine, in the title sequence, to chart the demise of a single
family. Kassab portrays the lives of ordinary people — simple,
unglamorous, down-to-earth. Her understated style isolates small details and
the anxieties that lurk within them. The tiny shifts in a normal day are an
entire world to the people at the centre of her stories.
