A dramatically affecting novel that is also politically astute.
An ambitious Persian composer falls illicitly in love with the Russian princess he tutors in this novel based on a true story.
Nasrollah Minbashian travels from Tehran, the city of his birth, to Russia with his father, Salar Moazaz, to study at the St. Petersburg Conservatory under the direction of renowned composer Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov. Nasrollah remains there for seven years, falls deeply in love with the city and its cosmopolitan culture, and regrets leaving when the time comes. Back at home, Nasrollah flourishes as a musician in Tehran and is appointed the director of a military band. The Persian king bestows on him the honorary title Nasrosoltan. Still, he pines to return to St. Petersburg and become a daring composer like Stravinsky, though his “domineering father” wants him to settle down and start a family. Nasrollah finally returns to Russia but gambles his way into dire financial straits, and he’s compelled to take a job as piano tutor to Princess Irina Alexandrovna, the czar’s niece. Nasrollah is unhappy with the assignment, but he eventually falls for Irina while realizing that their love is almost certainly doomed. Staying in St. Petersburg would be the fulfillment of a dream and probably torpedo his career. “You know it was always my dream to live and compose in this great city. But I now realize I will remain a nobody if I stay here, just a piano tutor to some. Even though I believe I am a worthy composer, there are hundreds of composers in this city who cannot make a living through their work.”
Haddad bases the novel on his own grandfather of the same name, relating a story he was told while in Tehran in 1978 in advance of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. He astutely sets the drama of Nasrollah’s love affair against both the tumult of his time and his grandfather’s time; in the early 20th century, both Russia and Tehran were experiencing profound political discontent as calls for reform became increasingly urgent. Nasrollah is an enticingly complex character—musically gifted and deeply ambitious, even haughty, he learns a remarkable humility from the experience of lost love. In florid terms that flirt with melodrama, Haddad depicts his anguish: “Nasrosoltan’s whole being felt pained, knowing full well there was no remedy: the pain that seems it will never depart the body, which is ever-present and relentless, like a thief, robbing the victim of sleep, appetite, and any joy or purpose.” The novel, despite its brevity, unfolds far too slowly, and the prose ranges from unspectacular to overwrought. However, this remains an exceedingly intelligent tale that thoughtfully juxtaposes the maddening effects of romantic love with the violent paroxysms of political insurrection. Furthermore, the reader is given a rare literary treat: a peek into distinct revolutionary periods—Russia and Iran in the early years of the 20th century and Iran in the century’s last quarter.
A dramatically affecting novel that is also politically astute.Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-259430-2
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Appleyard & Sons Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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