*** By Way of Oak Street is a quiet, assured piece of creative nonfiction that succeeds through restraint rather than spectacle. Its power lies in how it translates a deeply specific cultural moment—a Lebanese vegan wedding brunch in a Boston backyard—into a universal meditation on belonging, hospitality, and the temporary grace of being welcomed into another people’s history. *** By Way of Oak Street By Harry Arabian The invitation arrived like a postcard from another life—cream paper, careful script, and an illustration of red-roofed village homes perched above a blue Mediterranean curve. Samir & Nadia. Saturday. 11:30 a.m. Vegan wedding brunch. It promised Lebanon by way of Oak Street, which felt improbable and therefore irresistible. Samir and I worked together on the engineering floor, where logic ruled and lunches were eaten quickly between meetings. He had come to us from a village in northern Lebanon with a calm intelligence that made complicated circuits s...