Parnaz ForoutanRecensioni

The "girl" is actually 2 girls -- Mahboubeh who is a grown woman living in CA in the present day, or at least more contemporary time, and Rakhel, an aunt who lived in a Jewish community in Iran earlier in the 20th century. Mahboubeh is tending her garden and re-living, almost channeling memories of that past time -- because much of it precedes her own childhood. Rakhel came to the Malacouti family as a young (13?) bride for the first son, Ascher. The family is wealthy, well-respected as grain merchants and is ruled by the kindly but traditional matriarch Zolahah. Another young bride Khorsheed (Mahboubeh's mother) belongs to the younger, weaker brother Ibrahim, but is first to produce an heir. Meanwhile Rakhel remains childless. The dynamic this sets up and the tension it creates is really at the heart of the story. As an audio book it was tricky to catch the names as well as many cultural terms both from the Jewish and Muslim traditions that existed side by side, peacefully for the most part. It was fascinating to see how essential women's reproduction was to their worth. This book does a good job of capturing the time periods, the historical and cultural backgrounds and the relationships among the characters. The story is rounded out by the presence of Kocab, who becomes a second wife to Ascher. The women's bravery and self-possession (and subversion) is inspiring in the face of the male domination that is their way of life. Unfortunately, there is no "winning." I felt it ended a little abruptly and there were some plot lines I would have like to see pursued/wrapped up, but that could have been some inattentive listening on my part. Solid, worthwhile story.

Really enjoyed this debut.

How is one to find belonging in a place she doesn't belong? How to define oneself as a "Los Angelino" or "Iranian" when you are neither, and both? This poetic and beautifully written memoir places the author in an in-between time: between youth and adulthood, between being a child to one's parents and moving away from them, between being an American and an Iranian. Parnaz is an Iranian woman who left the country with her parents at the start of the revolution and landed in Los Angeles -- perhaps the most polar opposite place she could be, culturally and spiritually. She has grown up in California, but at 29, she still doesn't quite fit in. Her school years were awkward, more so than for the average LA teen, with her parents' rules and guidelines for her as a "proper" modest Muslim woman limiting her breathing space and marking the parameters of her behavior. Toss her headscarf aside as she might when she left the house and stuff it in her backpack -- she would still carry that identity on the streets of America, and it affected her relationship with others.

When her father dies, Parnaz moves back to Iran to find traces of him and traces of herself as well, but she fits in there as awkwardly as she did back home in LA. She's not a proper Iranian girl, and gets herself into trouble time and again with her "loose" and free ways, her rebelliousness against the restrictive patriarchal society, and her conflicting desire to fit in there but on her terms.

In the Iran that she finds stifling in many ways, however, she also finds beauty, simplicity, colors she never imagined, and a kind of happiness.

I would categorize this book between two genres - memoir and poetry. The language sings and is evocative of Parnaz' conflicting emotions, which shift like sand underfoot. The stories are realistic, and suspenseful, keeping the reader holding her breath, but lyrical as well, each episode weighted with significance. We can feel the emotional and psychical importance of these events as they sear themselves into Parnaz's mind and soul.

The author does a fantastic job of evoking a particular time in a young woman's life, when the search for meaning and identity weights every event with potential, when the future is limitless because it is unknown, when the idea of "becoming" is just as important as "being."

One thing I would have liked to have more of a sense of was the narrator's relationship with her father, which is the impetus behind her move back to Iran and one of the overarching themes of the story, but the reader does not get a clear sense of that relationship at all, only a post-death sadness at the loss of him, and a little glimpse of the end of his life, with his waning health and the narrator's tortured sad waiting for his death. Her father is clearly a larger presence post-death, whether appearing to her in a dream or in the form of a spiritual conduit/shaman. Perhaps that is purposeful, but the importance of her relationship with him loses its significance a bit due to this lack.

Beautifully written, sad and poetic. An insight into a way of life that feels like it must be long gone, but this book takes place in the fifties in Iran, during a time when a woman's role was to make the dinner, have babies, and keep her face covered.
Made me temporarily hate all men.

One of People Magazine’s pick of the “Best New Books”. Foroutan weaves a powerful tale of a Persian Jewish family inspired by her own history. Her paradise was a cultivated place set apart from the vast wilderness in the city of Kermansha. The city is located in the west of Iran close to the border of Iraq. Her audience is privileged to enter into her garden, listen to her tale, and experience the life and traditions of Iranian Jews at that time and place. It is a suspenseful novel of obsession, power, and vulnerability.

It's not this books fault that it wasn't what I wanted it to be. I wanted a book about Irani Jews transtioning to life in the United States, this was about an older Irani woman looking back on her life, remembering the impact of her aunt, a woman who married as a teenager into a wealthy Jew family and was unable to give her husband a son and so was judged without value by the mores of the day.

A novel about frustrated desires, gendered spaces, and patriarchy told with an almost cinematic flow. But I still didn't care for it much.

3.5 For a successful Jewish man in Iran, not having a son is a terrible disgrace. For Rakhel, married to Asher at twelve and married for three years without any sign of a child it is a catastrophe. This story is narrated by the only remaining family member as a old woman now living in Los Angles.

This is a story about brothers who would do anything for each other, about family and what it means in the Iranian culture. I enjoyed reading about this culture in which I am so lacking in knowledge. Women are treated so strictly, so unforgivingly but even though it is very hard to like the very young Rachel at times, I did like that she didn't just accept things as they were but within the narrow frame allowed her she found a way to prosper. A very heartrending story, extremely well written though it does bounce back and forth in time.
The descriptions were wonderful, the family story well told. A very good story about a culture of which I am glad is very different from my own.½