For many years, heartache prevented Nahid Rachlin from turning her sharp novelist’s eye inward: to tell the story of how her own life diverged from that of her closest confidante and beloved sister, Pari. Growing up in Iran, both refused to accept traditional Muslim mores, and dreamed of careers in literature and on the stage. Their lives changed abruptly when Pari was coerced by their father into marrying a wealthy and cruel suitor. Nahid narrowly avoided a similar… More >>
the reader should note that the author came from a very compicated family for that she is describing the iranian and islamic society from her eyes …
from a person who visited iran for many times … the book is really full with lies and untrooth read for the situation …
Rating: 1 / 5
Very interesting to learn about the Iranian culture from an author who is unafraid. I felt her writing portrayed her pain as well as her strength. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Rating: 5 / 5
I read this excellent memoir in two sittings. The writing is fluid and compelling and easily takes you into the author’s life in Iran and into the lives of the writer’s two families – her adoptive mother Maryam and her biological mother, Mohtaram, two sisters. This moving story reveals the plight of women without a voice of their own in family or in public life and the difficulty of living in Iran during the time, for both men and women.
The memoir tells the poignant story of two Iranian sisters, Maryam and Mohtaram, their daughter, the author Nahid Rachlin, and of Nahid’s sisters, Pari and Manijeh, all Persian Girls living in Iran in the days of the Shah. It is also a moving story of the sisters’ love and loyalty in the face of family betrayal and loss, and the precarious lives of women living under strict tradition in a male dominated society.
It is also about Nahid’s personal struggle with her life with her biological parents after she was removed from her adoptive mother’s home in Tehran at age nine and returned to her family home. Nahid had been raised by her childless aunt Maryam since she was six months old and the shock of suddenly been taken away from Maryam by her father seemed to her like a cruel abduction. How she fights to resolve this and to lead her own independent life is the major subject of this book.
I recommend this excellent memoir for those interested in women, women’s rights, Iranian history, and the growth and development of a writer.
Thanks to the the Penguin Group for a review copy of this book. Paperback edition, 2007.
Rating: 5 / 5
I was engrossed by this story as I read it, but in the end, I was sorry to find that Nahid seems to remain a prisoner of her circumstances even in her adult life. She has outward freedom, yes, but she seems still torn and without hope of inward renewal. I don’t fault her for telling her story as it is, of course, but want to let others know that this is a very sad read all the way through. Also important to note (the cover may mislead some) is that this book is not a look into the life of someone who is a practicing Muslim (Nahid is not, nor are her biological parents or siblings.) There are only glimpses of this through her mother (Aunt Maryam).
The difficulties of life and stifling lack of freedom in Iran shown in this story are tragic, and I was grateful to get a closer look into them as they played out in Nahid and her family’s lives. It is also important to note, however, that the freedom America offers didn’t free Nahid’s soul. It is quite remarkable that Nahid made it to America and is living her dream of writing, but I hope that from telling her story both she and her readers will long for a deeper freedom of the soul. I would be quite remiss if I didn’t include that my strongest response to this book was to urge Nahid and all the embattled women of Iran to take their weary souls to Jesus Christ for rest. (Jesus as He is revealed in the Bible, not as He sadly was portrayed to Nahid by her college classmates, who seemed to be Christian in name only.) Gain whatever outward freedoms you can-I hope you gain many, but above these, gain freedom for your soul that is not at all dependent on your circumstances.
Rating: 3 / 5
This memoir by Ms. Rachlin reminded me of Arundhati Roy’s story about “the love laws”–the cultural taboos that decide who gets loved, how, and how much. The author of this book was given away to her mother’s sister, childless and yearning for a baby to love and raise. Years later, she was abruptly taken away from the woman she had come to feel was her mother, and returned against her will to her biological mother. There, she lived a more or less miserable existence, materially well off but emotionally traumatized by what seemed a loveless family ruled by her father, a classic patriarch. The author’s relationships to her sisters, brothers, parents, and other relatives form substantial strands running through her account, as she tries to assert her independence in a culture where women are firmly ruled by men. Against all hope, she was fortunate enough to go to school in America, and this proved key to her marrying a man she chose from her own feelings. Additionally, she was able to pursue her hopes of becoming a professional writer and through this medium, working out her own, unresolved sorrows about lost love and beloved persons. Her closest family relation–as sister, Pari–died under mysterious circumstances, and it was not resolved whether this was suicide, an accident, or even a murder. Like the author, Pari had her own burden of unhappiness, being unable to see her small son when she left her philandering and domineering husband.
This very charged emotional drama–which it is well to remember, is not fiction–is wrapped in an additional dimension of difficulty, as first repression by the US-support Shah, then the Islamic revolution, and finally the shattering of lives through the Iraq-Iran war, create the context for all of Ms. Rachlin’s experiences. Even in the United States, her encounters with ignorant and prejudiced people offered little relief, as did her loneliness due to language and cultural barriers. It is to her credit–and to the small kindnesses of a few individuals over time–that she was able to succeed in school, in love, and ultimately as a gifted writer.
The book is written in uncomplicated, descriptive style, accessible to any literate reader. Its great power rests in the clear description she gives of her experiences in dealing with the severe limitations placed upon her as a woman in Iran, and her account of those others around her. She never descends into caricature or cartoon-like representations, even when describing people who caused her great pain.
I recommend this book as an excellent account of the struggles of the heart for the freedom to love, as an example of how patriarchy and its “love laws” create misery in societies everywhere, and as a chronicle of a person who feels, like one of Camus’s characters, a stranger even in what is ostensibly home.
Rating: 5 / 5