Ode to Autumns

A fabulous first novel on a Jewish jeweller unfolds in post-Revolution Iran

The Septembers of Shiraz
Dalia Sofer,
Picador 14.99 pounds
When isaac amin sees two men with rifles walk into his office at half past noon on a warm autumn day in Tehran, his first thought is that he won8217;t be able to join his wife and daughter for lunch, as promised.8221; Instead, he finds himself incarcerated as a Zionist spy, without a trial, for an entire year. Set in September 1981 8212; two years after the Shah is overthrown 8212; Dalia Sofer8217;s incredibly poised debut is set to take its place as a literary great in 2008.

First, it has that one distinguishing feature that sets all great novels apart. A fabulous first line that has you hooked. Not cerebrally, but emotionally. You feel a physical pull when the Revolutionary Guards take Isaac away without a word. Your mind races ahead to imagine the pain of his separation. From the word go, The Septembers of Shiraz owns your heart.

Then there is the absolute simplicity of storytelling. Told in the third person, Sofer moves from Farnaz Isaac8217;s wife to Shirin his nine-year-old daughter and Parviz his 18-year-old son studying in New York with fluidity. The book that you read is about a family even though the points of view presented are quite individual. Finally, there is the language. Sofer writes like a poet allowing the beauty of her craft to shine through with simplicity. nbsp; From lines 8212; like 8220;Absence, Shirin thinks, is death8217;s cousin8221; 8212; to complex paragraphs: 8220;Even as a boy, and later as a young man, he had been driven less by principles than by his desire to erase the stains on his life 8212; the indifference of his father, the unhappiness of his mother, the rumbling of his stomach, the heat of his city, and the fear that like his father, he would live an insignificant life.8221; The writer is an artist.

She employs the same subtlety to political commentary. Sofer doesn8217;t take sides between the Islamic revolutionaries, their supporters and the more privileged. The family retainer Habibeh8217;s resentments are allowed to spill out but they don8217;t colour her character. Brother Mohsen may be Isaac8217;s interrogator and tormentor but he is also a father who has revenge in his heart. And Isaac, a Jewish gemologist and jeweller, is allowed to want a good life with the right to wake up next to his wife and children. Different people, different lives is the picture that is painted.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;

The elegiac title of the novel refers to the days spent by Isaac as a young man in the city of Shiraz 8212; and crops up only at the end of the book when he and his family are about to cross the border into Turkey. 8220;The Septembers of Shiraz, unlike this September, held in them the promise of return.8221; This time, the family leaves, knowing they can never return. And that sense of loss permeates the book as much as the grief of Isaac8217;s disappearance.

This novel is even more poignant because it is laced with truth. Sofer8217;s father was held in Tehran8217;s Evin Prison for a month in 1980 the family escaped in 1982. The author has experienced what happens when everything that defines you is taken away. The Septembers of Shiraz allows Sofer to go back in time on the strength of her memories to take her rightful place at home. And that is a just ending.