THE SEPTEMBERS OF SHIRAZ by Dalia Sofer
Dalia Sofer is the new face on the international scene, and the first novel of this young Iranian-American is another heartwrenching story of fundamentalist brutality, imprisonment, and a family attempting to escape. Though the genre is becoming familiar, and this novel contains all the expected elements, Sofer certainly knows what she’s talking about. At the age of ten, in 1982, she escaped from Iran with her family. Unfortunately, there must be five new novels and memoirs of escaping repressive regimes in bookstores right now.
What sets Sofer apart, and what I didn’t expect, is that she can write. Her style is simple, sophisticated and restrained. Though her tale is a potboiler of desperate scenes, she doesn’t go for melodrama. She always knows what to leave out, letting your anxiety pump the story full of adrenalin and do most of the work. She never goes poetic, never milks a scene, tells just enough.
Though the prison scenes can be harrowing, you soon find yourself in a morally gray world where even the revolutionaries have a point of view and a story – including the terrifying prison investigator, Mohsen.
The story unfolds in forty-seven short chapters, in Tehran, 1981, and is seen through three points of view: Isaac Amin, a thirty-five-year-old Jewish gemologist arrested at the very beginning of the story in his jewelry shop by revolutionaries with guns; his wife of twenty-five years, Farnaz, estranged from her husband but still in love with him, forced to face the house-inspecting soldiers and office looters alone; and nine-year-old Shirin, their daughter, who discovers files in her playmate’s basement that would lead to the arrest of her uncle.
An alternate story, not quite as successful, takes place in Brooklyn, told from a fourth point of view: Parviz, Isaac’s eighteen-year-old son, and covers his adoption by Hassidic Jews and his repressed romance with his landlord’s religious daughter. The two stories don’t quite intersect enough to be satisfying.
But the book abounds in great character moments, mistress/housekeeper confrontations, boss/employee face-offs, and Isaac’s terrifying interrogations by the man with the missing finger. I slowed down my reading hugely during the last hundred pages, not wanting to leave the characters, worrying that something bad would happen to my favorites right up to the last page.
The book’s title is a nostalgic reflection on the long-ago Septembers when Isaac and Farnaz first met at college in the romantic city of Shiraz, when their love was strong and real. Sofer’s novel is melancholic and tender, with the elegance of a sad tale told with judgment and discrimination.
(as originally posted on Shelf-Awareness.com)
Nick DiMartino
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Reader Comments (4)
I think Parviz's experience with the Hassidic Jewish community in New York is an effective counter to the fundamentalist Muslims in Iran in the process of taking control of the country. Members of the Amin family in Iran and New York live within exclusive religious communities, but the differences between how members of those communities practice their faith in relation to people outside of the faith mean that the family members have very different experiences in New York and Iran. Both fundmentalist Muslims and Hassidic Jews are religious communities that exclude others. The difference is that the Hassidic Jews do not force their world-view on others (something Parviz fears when he hears Rachel tell of friends going abroad to "help" other Jews) and do not expect the nation they live in to be absolutely monolithic. This is not the case in Iran where religion is a proxy for state power. The two stories show that social or religious groups can be exclusive without killing or destroying those they deem outsiders. The Hassidic Jews are a potential parallel to the fundamentalist Muslims, yet in failing to be a real parallel--in living up to their religious principles, which are Muslim principles as well, of valuing family and life for all--they render the fundamentalist Muslims pathetic without Sofer having to say this explicitly. Sofer's subtlety here is yet another instance in which she does not go the way of melodrama. Ultimately, the two stories allow the reader to see the fundamentalist Muslim soldiers' points of view without feeling that they must also agree with their regime or worldview.
Katie makes good points in the connections between the Hasid and the Islamic fundamentalists. Sofer does not beat an ideological drum. But Sofer seems to have a blind spot about the family's wealth. The only reason that Amin gets out of prison and the family escapes is the fact of their wealth. Extra money in Swiss banks, jewels to smuggle out in their clothes. THose without money get shot and further oppressed. And the son is as privileged as his parents--he is embarrassed at the idea of having to work to pay his way! This is beneath him. An attitude that would have gotten him shot in Iran. She does not beat a drum, but she seems to not see this flaw in her beautifu tapestry.
Katie makes good points in the connections between the Hasid and the Islamic fundamentalists. Sofer does not beat an ideological drum. But Sofer seems to have a blind spot about the family's wealth. The only reason that Amin gets out of prison and the family escapes is the fact of their wealth. Extra money in Swiss banks, jewels to smuggle out in their clothes. THose without money get shot and further oppressed. And the son is as privileged as his parents--he is embarrassed at the idea of having to work to pay his way! This is beneath him. An attitude that would have gotten him shot in Iran. She does not beat a drum, but she seems to not see this flaw in her beautiful tapestry.
I wish she did get poetic. This reads like a propaganda book. As far as I know, a Muslim in Israel would probably not be treated very nicely now would they. The books sounds like it was ripped off another. Very middle-brow.