Setting the Bar

I find books about the Middle East, and Iran in particular, fascinating.  This book was very illuminating. Pasha, the main character, is a 17 year old young adult in Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s tyrannical regime.  He and his best friend, Ahmed, fall in love with their neighbors - Ahmed with Faheema and Pasah with Zari. Pasha is in his senior year of high school and is well along the path towards attending school in the United States, where he will study engineering. Pasha has a crush on his next door neighbor Zari, but from the beginning, things seem stacked against them. She is engaged to a progressive University student that Pasha admires greatly. Doctor is also involved in revolutionary activities and leaves town for some time in order to engage in his activities. While Doctor is away, Ahmed, Faheema and Pasha meet at Zari’s home to keep her company. When Doctor returns home, tragedies mount and mount and mount. They seem to beget each other.

This was a first book by Seraji, who came to the United States from Iran when he was 19 to study film.  It was a very good first novel and I felt like I learned a lot from it.  At times it was very lyrical. At the same time, however, there were parts where the writing was very jerky.  The young people that he wrote about were very well developed and faced so much in their very short lives.  The relationships are wonderful and very well developed. The dialogue is just as rich as the descriptions and they balance each other out very well. This is a very realistic and beautifully done first novel in general.

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