“The Stationery Shop” - Marjan Kamali

📝tl;dr: Read this book. It is phenomenal. I can guarantee that you will adore it. Set alternately in 1950s Iran, and New England decades later, this love story mirrors the hopes, fears, and disappointment of young Iranians desperate to place their country on solid political ground.

📝 This moving novel revealed how little I know about Iranian history. It pushed me to read up on the 1953 coup, the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and America’s obvious role in the former. For those who don’t know, in the 1953 America-backed coup attempt, the Shah tried to oust the democratically elected PM who took a hard line position against foreign interests.

📝 TSS rotates between 1916 Iran, 1950s Tehran, 1970s California, and 2013 New England.  Kamali elegantly manages the storylines across these timelines, and intersects them beautifully and unexpectedly.

📝Innocent Raya waits for her great love, amidst the sudden tumult of the coup attempt. He never shows up and she is left with many questions but no answers. Although Raya and Bahman are of the same socio-economic class, social expectations and notions of respectability and status, poison their relationship.

📝 Although she is a villainous character, Kamali takes pains to flesh out Mrs. Aslan so that we may understand the catastrophically self-serving actions she would later take. Kamali creates space in our hearts for all of her characters - including Mrs. Aslan.