September in June

A full week after our book group meeting, I have finally gotten around to posting ;) This time, we read “Septembers of Shiraz,” by Dalia Sofer. Everyone enjoyed the novel, which is a somewhat autobiographical account of one Jewish family’s ordeal during and after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Each member of the family tells his or her own part of the story – the father who was taken to prison, the wife who was left behind, the daughter who wants to fight back against the regime, and the son, cut off from his family and drifting aimlessly through New York City.

I believe this is the first novel for Sofer, whose family fled Iran when she was 10 years old. This book was very eye-opening for me, since I didn’t know very much about the Iranian Revolution. It almost seems as though it started out as more of a class struggle than a religious battle, although the religious fundamentalists eventually gained most of the power.

When we chose this book, we almost ended up picking “Persepolis,” by Marjane Satrapi, which seems to cover similar themes, but in graphic novel format. Now I definitely want to read that one as well (another one to add to the list!).

And in case you were wondering, we did drink Shiraz during the meeting ;)

Up next for the book group is “The Great Man,” by Kate Christensen.