Persian Nights (William Abrahams Book) - Softcover

Johnson, Diane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452279585 ISBN 13: 9780452279582

Publisher: Penguin, 1998

Synopsis

The young, pretty, and unliberated wife of a successful doctor, Chloe Fowler has barely arrived in Iran when her husband is summoned home unexpectedly. Left alone to explore the heady wonders of this exotic country on her own, Chloe is inexplicably drawn to its mysterious customs and traditions. As she travels deeper into a strange and tantalizing culture of veiled women and seductive, dangerous men, she discovers an Iran the tourists never see - on a life-affirming journey of enlightenment, self-discovery, and love that will transform her conventional life forever.

About this title

Review:

"Funny, incisive, frightening and eminently skillful. In addition, it displays the Cassandra-like quality of good fiction... When we read, at a climactic moment in the novel, 'It seems the Americans are gun runners, ' the words hit home with a sickening thud. Ms. Johnson's novel might be read as a primer by any Westerner unfamiliar with Iran--that is, by anyone who has not lived there for some weeks, unprotected by the artificial host apparatus set up for Government-sanctioned visits."--Jayne Phillips, New York Times

"All this is material for a tale of high adventure in a dangerous, foreign setting; but novelist and screenwriter Diane Johnson also explores a deeper level of human intrigue: one that has less to do with the suspenseful action than with its attendant moments of doubt and discovery... Deftly, the narrative weaves through the lives and viewpoints of the other residents of the Azami Compound: Iranian doctors and their fretful, foreign spouses; American doctors divorced or just divorcing; Iranian wives who feel stifled and alienated and seek escape from their country; a grieving widower who seeks meaning in death through an impulsive act of bravery."--Los Angeles Times

"Intelligent and level."--Kirkus Reviews

Synopsis:

This is the story of Chloe, an American in Iran just before the fall of the Shah, surviving in a stormy political climate. She observes the domestic manners of her compatriots as well as her Iranian hosts, forming an idea of life from half-understood fragments. The author has written six novels including "Lying Low" and "The Shadow Knows" as well as two biographies: "Lesser Lives" and "The Life of Dashiell Hammett". She has collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the screenplay for "The Shining" and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0452279585
• ISBN 13: 9780452279582
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 364