April 1, 2013
Lyrical and restrained, Khadivi's second novel (after 2010's The Age of Orphans) spotlights the universal undercurrents of immigration through the exodus of two Kurdish brothers, Saladin and Ali, in the midst of the Iranian Revolution. She introduces a collective voice that repeats throughout the work, its cadence true to the fitful mindset of Iranians as Ayatollah Khomeini replaces the Shah. Shifting between reflections of those who chose to stay and those who fled, Khadivi's groupoverview sections assume the function of an omnipotent chorus, orienting brothers' struggles within the greater philosophical and psychological framework of immigration. The chapters devoted to their journeys soar on oft-haunting, always precise imagery, such as when several Kurdish men's bodies fall puppet-like "as somewhere in the sky, a million threads were cut." After these Kurdish men fall, Ali leads his younger brother away before they can be killed for refusing to follow orders. Khadivi moves with some grace between the brothers' scramble farther from home and the near future, which sees Saladin adjusting to his new homeâhis dreamland, Los Angelesâfighting his way through the freshlystirred American distrust of Iranians. This second of three novels brings a delicate touch to the emotional intricacies involved in both leaving one's homeland, and in staying behind.
January 1, 2013
In this awkward second novel, a young man flees Iran in the wake of the 1979 revolution that deposed the Shah and installed the mullahs. See the refugee. Watch him cross the border. See him adrift in a strange city. Seventeen-year-old Saladin is an ethnic Kurd and an Iranian citizen. His father was the protagonist of Khadivi's debut (The Age of Orphans, 2009), a police captain who did the Shah's dirty work; now he goes along with the mullahs' decision to execute some Kurdish "rebels" in a remote valley. However, Saladin's big brother Ali shoots three of the firing squad, and the brothers race away. So, very specifically, Saladin is fleeing a crime scene, but too often he is the Universal Refugee, the one with nothing but the shirt on his back. There are other refugees, more well-heeled; they are not individuated, but given voice through the first-person plural. It's a tricky device, and it distracts from Saladin's story, especially when Khadivi intrudes, cataloging the eventual destinations of the migrants, with Los Angeles absorbing the largest number. It's Saladin's destination too. We see him walking the streets; half-heartedly seeking work at a steelworks and a gas station; spending long hours in cinemas, for he has inherited his mother's love of movies. Khadivi details his escape with his brother in flashbacks: their ride with smugglers into Turkey, followed by a hellish journey on a freighter to the Azores, where they part company, Saladin stowing away on a flight to California. None of this achieves the drama of the execution scene; nor do Saladin's travails in Tinseltown. When Americans are taken hostage in Tehran, Saladin the scapegoat is beaten up in a bar before meeting his savior, an indulgent Iranian rug seller who hires him on the spot. Even his encounter with a young Afghan woman, an apprentice streetwalker, goes nowhere. More an outline than a fully realized novel.
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February 1, 2013
In her first novel, The Age of Orphans, Khadivi wrote about Reza, a young Iranian who rose to the rank of captain in the army that, ironically, had made him an orphan. In this, the next book of a trilogy, Reza's son Saladin escapes from Iran after the Shah is deposed, arriving in Los Angeles as a stowaway on a freight plane. Separated from his beloved brother, bruised and starving, he quickly sees that the reality of California is far from the Hollywood movies he grew up watching. Eventually, Saladin comes upon a Farsi-speaking shopkeeper who takes him in, gives him a job, and finds him lodging. Surrounded by television news, Saladin is constantly reminded of the situation in Iran and decides to turn his back on his native land, desperately trying to become more American. VERDICT Writing from direct experience, Khadivi includes relevant, timely history that makes her novel alive and gripping. She declares, "To be a lover of Iran, to be of Iran is to be a lover of poetry, to be a poet," and certainly her descriptions of people, places, and particularly emotions are exquisite--poetry in prose. Highly recommended for all readers interested in the timely topic of immigration.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., Middletown, OH
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