Book Review: *The Septembers of Shiraz* by Dalia Sofer

• The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (April 29, 2008 )
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061130419
• ISBN-13: 978-0061130410

Like a dam straining to hold back the floods, Isaac Amin, a Persian Jew, had reinforced the known weak spots so that he and his family could survive in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution; he diverted funds from his gem-dealing business to his Swiss accounts, he sent his university-age son to the US where he would be safe from the reaches of the new Iranian army.  These precautions weren’t enough; one day the dam burst and Isaac was arrested by the revolutionaries on suspicion of being a Zionist spy.

Isaac Amin is one of the main characters in Dalia Sofer’s thought-provoking and powerful novel The Septembers of Shiraz.  It recounts one year in the life of the family, beginning with the day Isaac is arrested in September 1981.  Narrated in the third-person, the chapters are told alternately from the perspective of the Amin family members: Isaac, his wife Farnaz, their son Parviz and nine-year-old daughter Shirin.  This varied perspective makes the novel more palatable than it would have been from a first-person narration; it allows the reader a bit of distance from the intense emotions that the characters must be experiencing.  Perhaps it will enjoy a wider audience because of this styling.

Sofer’s prose flow smoothly, full of striking metaphors.  Shortly after he learns of his father’s imprisonment, Parviz is walking across the Brooklyn Bridge:  “… something about the bridge – its combination of suspension and sturdiness – comforts him.  A bridge, he thinks, is the only place where uncertainty is permissible, where one can exist with no connection to any land – or any person – but with the reassurance that connection is possible.”  Around the same time in the novel, Farnaz embarks on a fruitless mission to find her husband in prison; sitting and waiting for a guard to return, she hears a prisoner begging in response to questions from his interrogator, “for most people, she thinks, the notion of death is no more than a wallpaper – present but rarely seen.  Prisoners, who have little to distract them, have no choice but to stare at this wallpaper.”

Sofer explores many themes in the book, including those of loss, injustice, innocence of youth, loyalty, and material wealth versus the riches of faith and family.  The list is long, but Sofer layers them without crowding; I had to let the book settle within me for several days before I could discern the many subtle threads within it.  The Septembers of Shiraz enriched my knowledge of the time around the revolution in Iran, and made me curious to learn more.  Its complexity lends itself very well to a book group discussion.

Dalia Sofer spent her first ten years in Iran, fleeing to the United States in 1982.  The work is based loosely on her family’s experience.  I read the Harper Perennial paperback edition, which includes an essay by Sofer detailing some of the research she did, in addition to pulling from her own memories.  This includes studying photographs and history, and interviewing former Iranian prisoners to learn about not only the physical torture, but also the range of emotions they experienced, including mental anguish and even hope.

To learn more about the author you can visit her publisher’s site or read an interviewfrom the New York Times book blog.  I read this book as part of an online discussion; many thanks to Gayle at Everyday I Write the Bookblog for organizing and leading the group, and to HarperCollins for providing the book.