In this lush if chaotic novel from Azar (The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree), a Zoroastrian family’s peace is shattered by the Iranian Revolution. The novel focuses on how war and cultural erasure interfere in the lives of narrator Shokoofeh and her family. When she’s 15, shortly before the revolution, a large tree mysteriously sprouts in their kitchen and she falls in love with a family friend named Behnam. Years later, Behnam, who has been living in the U.S., returns to Iran and goes missing, as does Sholoofeh’s brother who went mad after fighting in Iraq. Meanwhile, the mysterious tree remains in their house, and it comes to serve as a symbol of the family’s unity and its Zoroastrian roots (“The tree in the middle of the kitchen had not moved an inch. It was the same as it had always been. Laden with fruit. Leafy. Thriving. Home to a thousand birds”). In this vein, Azar weaves in Zoroastrian folklore such as Shokoofeh’s father’s reenactment of the story of Zahhak, a tyrannical mythical emperor. Though the allusions can be transfixing, they sometimes make the story feel cluttered and confusing, and many among the large cast of characters are left underdeveloped. There’s plenty of beauty on offer here, but readers will have trouble going the distance.
