When Anthony Shadid, one of four New York Times reporters captured in Libya, was freed, he went home to an ancient estate built by his great-grandfather. For two years previous, he had worked to reconstruct the house and restore his spirit after both had weathered war. Now he tells the story of the house's re-creation, recovering the lives that have passed through it. He juxtaposes past and present as he traces the house's renewal along with his family's flight from Lebanon to America.

"In 2006, Shadid, an Arab-American raised in Oklahoma, was covering Israel's attack on Lebanon when he heard that an Israeli rocket had crashed into the house his great-grandfather built, his family's ancestral home. Not long after, Shadid (who had covered three wars in the Middle East) realized that he had lost his passion for a region that had lost its soul. He had seen too much violence and death; his career had destroyed his marriage. Seeking renewal, he set out to rebuild the house that held his family's past in the town they had helped settle long ago. Although the course of the reconstruction is complicated by craftsmen with too much personality, squabbles with his extended family, and Lebanon's political strife, Shadid is restored along with the house and finds that his understanding of the Middle East, which he had known chiefly in wartime, has been deepened by his immersion in smalltown life. Coming to terms with his family's emigrant experience and their town's history, the