The Persians
A Novel
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- $299.00
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- $299.00
Descripción editorial
Shortlisted for The Women’s Prize • Named a Most Anticipated Book by Electric Literature, Publishers Weekly, The BBC, Daily Mail (London), and more
A darkly funny, life-affirming “joy of a debut novel” (David Mitchell) that follows five women from three generations of a once illustrious Iranian family as their lives are turned upside down.
The women of the Valiat family are in crisis. Elizabeth, the regal matriarch, remained in Tehran despite the revolution and only has Niaz, her Islamic law–breaking granddaughter for company. In America, Elizabeth’s daughters, the flamboyantly high-flying Shirin and frustrated housewife Seema, are wondering if their new lives there are what they had hoped for. Lastly, there’s the second granddaughter, Bita, a disillusioned law student trying to find deeper meaning by giving away her worldly belongings.
When an annual vacation in Aspen goes wildly awry and Shirin ends up being bailed out of jail, gossip about the family spreads like wildfire. Soon, Shirin sets out to restore the family name to its former glory. But what does that mean in a country where the Valiats never mattered to anyone?
The Persians is an irresistible portrait of a unique family in turmoil that explores timeless questions of love, money, art and fulfilment. Here is their past, present, and a possible new future for them all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Mahloudji's ebullient debut, a Persian family reckons with their exile and loss of prestige in the wake of the Islamic Revolution. In December 2005, middle-aged Shirin Valiat, a charismatic events planner based in Houston, is arrested for prostitution in Aspen, Colo., during a vacation with her family. News of Shirin's arrest harms her thriving business, prompting her to move into her niece Bita's cramped Manhattan apartment and court new clients at the funeral of a prominent Persian woman with ties to her estranged mother, Elizabeth, who still lives in Tehran. Mahloudji interweaves the story of Elizabeth's life in the early 1940s, when she's an aspiring painter and falls for Ali Lufti, the son of the family's chauffeur. Eventually, Elizabeth marries a much older man, choosing her family's approval over her love for Ali Lufti, but she's deeply unhappy, especially as she abandons her art career to care for her three children, all of whom flee with their own children during the Revolution. Only Shirin's six-year-old daughter, Niaz, remains with Elizabeth. Mahloudji keeps the reader turning the pages as Elizabeth teases and finally reveals her darkest secrets about Ali Lufti along with the reason behind Niaz's remaining behind in Tehran. It's a memorable family saga.
