Month: December 2014

Tehran at Twilight, by Salar Abdoh, (Akashic Books), 240 pages, released October 7, 2014

I’ve been doing my best to read any fiction I come across that depicts life in contemporary Iran. Thus far, Salar Abdoh’s Tehran at Twilight is the best of those I’ve read.

Abdoh’s Iran is a place where the question isn’t if one has been complicit, but rather the extent of one’s complicity. Malek Reza, the novel’s protagonist, is an Iranian-American, one who initially supported the revolution, but moved to the U.S. with his father when the revolutionary government became as violent towards its own citizens as the shah’s had been. As Reza notes near the end of the book, “Change always carried a price. Often that price was that there would be no change at all”—words that, unfortunately, ring true in too many countries, including the U.S.

Reza’s best friend, Sina Vafa, has returned to Iran after he and Reza finished their educations at U.C. Berkeley. Vafa is still committed to the revolution despite its disappointments, still eager to engage in clandestine activity in Iran or in surrounding countries.

After years of separation, Vafa contacts Reza, asking him to return to Iran and—upon Reza’s return—asking him to accept Vafa’s power of attorney. This request, not surprisingly, is more complex than it seems, ultimately sundering the two men’s friendship:

Later on, whenever he thought about it, Malek would come back to this night as the precise moment when something broke between him and Sina. It was like he was watching his friend drift away in a boat and there was nothing he could do to stop it or reel him back in. Something was finished. But they still had to play along.

Part of the novel’s richness is that it looks beyond these characters’ lives to see present-day Iran through other sets of eyes as well. There’s James McGreivy, a former marine grown critical of U.S. policy, who’s been hired to teach writing at the same New York college where Reza is employed. Importantly, there are two mothers as well: Reza’s, who walked away from him and his father before the revolution, and Vafa’s, living in straightened circumstances since her son evicted her from the one piece of property she’d been able to reclaim from the revolutionary government. The relationships among these characters balance love, distrust, and bitterness in varying amounts. In the Iran of the novel, no relationship is simple.

Tehran at Twilight begins a bit slowly, but is worth sticking with. As the characters and their predicaments engage you, you’ll find yourself reading more quickly, hungrily, and feeling unwilling to put the book down. Read this book both for the picture of Iran it offers and for its insights into human relationships.

The William Shakespeare Detective Agency: The School of Night, Colin Falconer, (Cool Gus Publishing), 177 pages, released October 7, 2014

I have a weakness for mystery novels. I also have a weakness for historical fiction. So when I see a promising historical mystery, I’m caught. Colin Falconer’s The William Shakespeare Detective Agency is latest such book to have reeled me in.

The William Shakespeare of the title is not the playwright. It’s his cousin, just up to London from Stratford, determined to make a more interesting life for himself. Will sees himself as something less than that famous cousin:

Trouble clings to me like a burr to a sheep’s fleece. I don’t know why. I’m not an easy mark, a man my size, I have to duck my head to get through doors, and I’ve put on a bit of muscle these last few years from throwing sheep around at the market and helping at the smithy. Perhaps it’s my manner; I’m not fierce by nature, and it encourages some to see how far they can push me.

Will gets plenty of pushing in this novel. He’s knocked out three times, has his hand cut open by a dagger wielded by a capital-L Lady, is robber repeatedly by the same urchin, and has to wriggle his way out from under his cousin’s “dark lady.”

The historical detail here is pretty good. Falconer certainly captures the fatalism—and the odors—of 16th Century London. On the other hand, as in many such novels, there is more mixing among the classes than one would expect. So the story comes across as both real and unreal.

That Lady who cut his hand open? She hires him to look for her scoundrel of a husband—not because she misses him, but because she hopes to find proof he’s dead. Will takes on this challenge willingly (sorry) and, after the usual kinds of surprises and plot devices, solves the mystery.

OK, it’s not great literature, but it’s fun bedtime reading.

House of Purple Cedar, Tim Tingle, (Cinco Puntos Press), 192 pages, released February 18, 2014

Once again, I find myself deeply impressed by a title from Cinco Puntos Press. The books coming from this Texas-based publisher are an eclectic, impressive bunch. Case in point: Tim Tingle’s House of Purple Cedar.

Set in the late 1800s, House Made of Purple Cedar offers the life story of Rose Goode, a young Choctaw woman with close ties to family and community, but particularly to her grandparents. At this time, Oklahoma was not yet a state. It was Indian Territory, the final stop on the Trail of Tears, a forced march that had taken the Choctaw (and a number of other First Nations) from their original home in the deep south. An Indian Agent (who, of course, is not Indian) oversees the lives of Choctaw in Rose’s community of Skullyville.

The relationship between the Choctaw and the Nahullos (anglos) is tense and made much worse by the presence the alcoholic, Indian-hating sheriff Hardwicke. The community has been plagued by arson, which started with the burning of the girls’ school, New Hope Academy, in which twenty schoolgirls died.

The Choctaw community repeatedly faces the challenge of defending itself against Nahullo violence, not only because of the arson, but because of attacks on individual Choctaw as well. The first impulse is to attack in kind, a response that would only bring down more violence. Instead the Choctaw find ways to respond with dignity.

This book is full of characters who captivate readers. Besides Rose, there’s her grandmother Pokoni who may (or may not) take on the guise of a black panther after her death. There’s also a one-armed Civil War veteran who looks over the villages children in uncertain times. There are also several Nahullo wives looking for ways to survive abuse by their own husbands.

This description may make the book sound somber, which it is—but it is also a delight, glowing with the ingenuity and hopefulness of the Choctaw community. This book transcends genre in that it’s suitable for readers from late grade school up to centenarians. I can see myself giving it to a ten-year-old neighbor. I can also see myself giving it to a book-loving great aunt. The prose is straightforward, beautiful in its lack of adornment.

If you’re looking for reading that really matters—and that is really beautiful—you’ll find House Made of Cedar deeply satisfying. And while you’re at it, check out some other titles from Cinco Puntos Press; they have a marvelous catalogue.