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Book Reviewed by:Inspired by her own family's experiences following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Susanne Pari explores the entangled lives within an Iranian American family grappling with generational culture clashes, the roles imposed on women, and a tragic accident that forces them to reconcile their guilt or forfeit their already tenuous bonds.
Set between San Francisco and New Jersey in the late-1990's, In the Time of Our History is a story about the universal longing to create a home in this world – and what happens when we let go of how we've always been told it should look.
Twelve months after her younger sister Anahita's death, Mitra Jahani reluctantly returns to her parents' home in suburban New Jersey to observe the Iranian custom of "The One Year." Ana is always in Mitra's heart, though they chose very different paths. While Ana, sweet and dutiful, bowed to their domineering father's demands and married, Mitra rebelled, and was banished.
Caught in the middle is their mother, Shireen, torn between her fierce love for her surviving daughter and her loyalty to her husband. Yet his callousness even amid shattering loss has compelled her to rethink her own decades of submission. And when Mitra is suddenly forced to confront hard truths about her sister's life, and the secrets each of them hid to protect others, mother and daughter reach a new understanding—and forge an unexpected path forward.
Alive with the tensions, sacrifices, and joys that thrum within the heart of every family, In the Time of Our History is also laced with the richness of ancient and modern Persian culture and politics, in a tale that is both timeless and profoundly relevant.
I felt I was witnessing an unraveling of an artful web of multiple viewpoints and history. The story effortlessly describes each character's contribution or thread in that web. I felt emotionally invested in each angle of the various dynamics and family relationships, such as the push and pull of the bond between sisters, the strong love between mother and daughter, and the love-hate struggle of a patriarchal father-daughter duo (Diane J). The depth of the characters made me want them to walk off the page so we could sit down, share tea and have deep conversations (Mary L). This is one of those stories that makes you sad when you reach the last page because you just aren't ready to let the characters go yet (Rebecca H)...continued
Full Review
(753 words)
(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
Susanne Pari's In the Time of Our History focuses on an Iranian American immigrant family between New Jersey and San Francisco in the 1990s. The novel is inspired by the author's own family's experiences following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. While people of Iranian descent have lived in the United States since at least the 1930s, immigration from Iran to America surged after the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during the revolution, as a strict Islamic regime took over. More people left the country for the US to flee the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, and the Iranian American population has continued to grow steadily since.
The majority of Iranian Americans today live in Southern California, primarily the Los Angeles area — ...
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Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
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Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club
This jewel of a novel is a universal tale that naturally leads to self-reflection and conversations about the changing relationship between mothers and daughters, and the choices we make, good and bad, early in life and late, which determine our identity.
