IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

A young woman makes her way through an earthquake in the heart of Tehran.

Mohebali’s novel opens on Shadi lying in bed, experiencing the beginnings of a comedown after having taken opium the previous night. As her family and city experience multiple earthquake tremors, Shadi disregards the chaos around her in favor of securing more of the opium balls that she tucks under her tongue to feel the “tadpoles” of sensation leaping through her body. Seeking out her friend Ashkan, who she thinks may have a hidden cache of drugs, she finds him “wilting under the shower” following an overdose. After she revives him, she picks through the contents of his vomit in an effort to find usable opium: “A few black specks hit the wall….I fish through his fluids for the leftovers.” Her misadventures are so bleak that appreciating the deadpan delivery can be a strain. Shadi’s pathway through Tehran is jumbled—the police take a woman who resembles Nana Molouk, her grandmother, and Shadi resolves to find her, but instead Shadi meets her old friend Sara. We see glimpses of Shadi’s love for Sara—“An earthquake isn’t so bad with Sara in one’s arms”––but ultimately even her tender flashes give way to apathy in her ongoing search for opium. Tehran-based author Mohebali has created a charismatic protagonist with an undeniable sense of humor as she watches the city devolve into frenzied flight during the earthquake, but Shadi's addiction hampers not only her own actions, but the pace and structure of the novel. Every abortive mission lessens the impact of her experience of the earthquake, and by the story’s end, the reader may be just as nihilistic as Shadi herself, lost in an often ambivalent character’s comings and goings.

A compelling portrait of a city in crisis limited by its protagonist’s apathy.