Jumping Over Fire
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
An Iranian family embroiled in Islamic revolution, the hostage crisis, incest and exile in America
Forced to flee the country with their parents as Khomeini rises to power, Nora and Jahan Ellahi rise to the challenge of anti-Iranian hostility in America. Breaking free from their intense attachment to each other, they explore new relationships to forge independent lives. The romantic artist Jahan ultimately returns to join the army to fight Iraq, while ambitious Nora finds a life of greater opportunity and personal freedom in the U.S.
“If, as Aristotle reminds us, we are our desire, then who are we if the object of our desire is forbidden? What becomes of us if we are born in one world yet long for another? These are just two of the complex and difficult questions Nahid Rachlin explores and ultimately illuminates in this brave, engrossing, and timely novel. I recommend it highly!”—Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and FogJumping Over Fire
"Complexities of Iranian culture, recent history, and current events create a vivid background for a moving and suspenseful story . . . wise and timely novel."—School Library Journal
"As always, Nahid's writing keeps you on the end of your seat and is filled with emotion . . . The story unfolds with surprise. What makes the book even more meaningful is that it is about a family of meager wealth rather than very affluent. It is a family, however, with complications that arise from their new homeland. Do they survive? That is for you to find out."—Persian Heritage Magazine
"Besides being 'page-turners', Rachlin's novels render, in abundance, the beauty and sensuousness of Persian culture."—New Letters
Nahid Rachlin is the Iranian-American author of the novels Foreigner, The Heart’s Desire, Married to a Stranger and the short story collection Veils. She teaches at the New School University and the Unterberg Poetry Center in New York.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rachlin illuminates the private and public consequences of the Islamic revolution in her latest novel of 20th-century Iranian life (Heart's Desire). Nora Ellahi, the daughter of an Iranian doctor and his American wife, lives a sheltered life among the economic elite of the oil city Masjid-e-Suleiman in the 1970s. While dissatisfaction with the ruling Shah and resentment of foreign influence spills over into street demonstrations, Nora grows increasingly attracted to her adopted brother, Jahan, a full Iranian, and their sexual affair blossoms during a summer at their country house in Meigoon. Nora and Jahan's illicit relationship plays out against the backdrop of a restrictive society, and the burgeoning revolution lends tension to each daily activity. The novel's less propulsive second half is set in America. When the revolution reaches Masjid-e-Suleiman, the Ellahi family leaves Iran and resettles in Long Island, where Nora revels in the more liberal society but the rest of the family struggles to adapt. Ultimately, Jahan must choose between the freedom of America and the patriotic call of serving his birth country in the Iran-Iraq war. Though Rachlin sometimes sacrifices art for clarity with her straightforward writing, she delivers a complex portrait of a divided Iran.
