"I know that I'm in the hallways of El-Deen, the central prison of the
Holy Republic, and I know that this guard is taking me from my solitary
confinement -- the Black Box -- to cell number four, cell of the
Unbreakables. But this is all I know..." So begins our hero's narration.
But Loony Kamal, the prison guard, doesn't believe him. Is it really
possible for a man to forget who he is? To lose every shred of memory?
Loony Kamal is bent on finding out. Our narrator, though, is even more
determined to survive. Their relationship -- with its inhuman brutality
and surprising tenderness -- lies at the complicated heart of Farnoosh
Moshiri's extraordinary debut novel. Which is where we quickly find
ourselves, too, for we want what each man wants: like Kamal, we want to
know more about our hero; like our hero, we long for his escape from
Kamal's grasp and the prison's walls. As if he were a latter-day
Sherazade, our hero fights for his life by retreating into a world of
stories -- or memories? -- of grandmothers and peacocks, love songs and
saffron smells, and the softness of a young girl's hand pulling him up
onto a magic carpet that flies down New Spring Street, over the crooked
houses, to the Almighty Wall, which Ali the Bricklayer stacks taller
every night. The grim unreality of life inside the prison falls darkly
upon us, but the fire of Moshiri's imagination also lights the way to a
different world. The masterful whole she fashions of torture and
fragments is essential reading not just for those interested in the
seldom-heard voices of Iranian women, but for those who care about the
progress of literature.
