The Septembers of Shiraz
Ratings2
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings2
Average rating3.8
In the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, rare-gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested, wrongly accused of being a spy. Terrified by his disappear-ance, his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known.As Isaac navigates the tedium and terrors of prison, forging tenuous trusts, his wife feverishly searches for him, suspecting, all the while, that their once-trusted housekeeper has turned on them and is now acting as an informer. And as his daughter, in a childlike attempt to stop the wave of baseless arrests, engages in illicit activities, his son, sent to New York before the rise of the Ayatollahs, struggles to find happiness even as he realizes that his family may soon be forced to embark on a journey of incalculable danger.A page-turning literary debut, The Septembers of Shiraz simmers with questions of identity, alienation, and love, not simply for a spouse or a child, but for all the intangible sights and smells of the place we call home.
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We read to go other places, to sample other lives. Reading, for me, at times lets me escape into lives I'd never want to lead, into places I'd never want to go.
The Septembers of Shiraz takes me deep into these lives I'd never lead, places I'd never go. Isaac Amin, along with his wife, his young daughter, and even his son in distant America, suffer the changes revolution in Iran creates. The persecuted become the persecutors. There is no safe place. Fear and anger breed more fear and anger. Hatred generates more hatred.
Amin's imprisonment spins and bends everything the family has believed and loved. Is it wrong to overlook the cruelties inflicted on the weak? How do you decide whether to remain in a familiar now dangerous place or dare to start a new life from scratch? Should one save a few strangers while risking one's family?
I couldn't stop reading this story. Would Amin live or die? Would the family stay or go? How had the pain inflicted on the jailers affect the way the jailers treated the jailed? Who were the good guys? How did the world become such a mess and how could it ever be made right?
This was a powerful book, beautifully told, that generated question after question in my mind long after I read the last page and closed the book.
