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Following the devastating attacks of September 11th, the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq, interest in the Muslim world has been building. But who are the people who live under the authoritarian regimes targeted by the United States?
Dakhmeh offers a kind of answer.
Written under an assumed name, Dakhmeh presents a frightening portrait of Tehran, seen through the eyes of an Iranian expatriate who returns to his hometown. As a young boy, Arash had lived comfortably. But the fall of the Shah and the ascent of Khomeini drastically changed the lives of families like his. Books were burned, soldiers patroled the streets, prayers were required, and the advent of the Iran-Iraq war brought shortages of both oil and food. Eventually, Arash's family was fortunate enough to flee to America.
Yet several years later, Arash yearns for his homeland with an intensity next to which everything else pales. When he finally returns to Iran, he finds a poor, repressed, and brutalized society. The title of Noori's novel offers a hint of things to come, for the word "dakhmeh" refers to a place where the dead are left to be devoured by vultures. As Dakhmeh so elegantly and persuasively demonstrates, it's possible to live in such a place even when one is still alive. (Fall 2003 Selection)
Publishers Weekly
An Iranian man whose family fled to America during the Iranian Revolution returns to his childhood home in this restrained but passionate novel by a first-time author writing under a pen name. Though Arash was just a boy when he came to the United States, he never felt comfortable there. His mother and sister beg him not to return to Iran, but when his mother dies, he buys a one-way ticket to Tehran. His dreamlike wanderings in the city and his musings on the problems of his fellow Iranians are recorded in a journal he keeps and also in a third-person narrative. This double-layered storytelling gives his otherwise bleak tale a gauzy, mythical aura. Upon his arrival in Tehran, he moves aimlessly about, losing himself in memories. He meets a woman and is with her for a while, but breaks things off when he decides that he is too unsettled to give her what she needs. He dreams of solving the country's problems, "having tasted freedom and knowing there was a better way," but is mocked when he speaks of his hopes for Iran. A modest, spontaneous gesture of revolt-he writes anti-regime messages on a succession of banknotes-lands him in prison, where he is tortured and suffers from tuberculosis. The investigator who tracks him down is a former revolutionary and feels a twisted sympathy for Arash. The muted ironies of Noori's tale are conveyed with delicacy and provide a sophisticated perspective on the plight of the Iranian people. (July) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Intertwining a third-person narration with his protagonist's journal entries, the pseudonymous Noori tells the tale of an Iranian-born American named Arash who returns to spend the rest of his life in Iran years after the revolution of 1979. Following his arrest for a crime we do not discover until the end of the novel, Arash attempts to come to terms with the new Iran, which is very different from the one he remembers as a child. The mystery of Arash's crime creates a tension that keeps the reader engaged, as does Arash's stubborn endurance in the face of torture and the abhorrent conditions of an Iranian prison. Though the end feels a little contrived, the prose is unassuming and easy to read, and the book is well worth reading for its personal perspective on modern Iran. Recommended for all fiction collections.-Lyle D. Rosdahl, San Antonio P.L. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
From a pseudonymous Iranian exile, now living in the US: a first novel that’s an eloquent indictment of authoritarian regimes—and yet is underpowered as narrative. While Arash, the protagonist, tells the major part of the story, there are intervening sections that awkwardly interject the comments of a jailer, an investigator, and a female prisoner. Arash, in a hellhole of an Iranian prison, is close to death from untreated tuberculosis and the torture he’s undergone, yet he remains determined to tell his story. He wants the world and his fellow Iranians to know the truth about Khomeini, who promised so much but is no different from his predecessors. Like so many upper-class Iranians, Arash, while still in high school, fled with his mother and sister to America when the Shah was deposed and the revolution turned violent. As the years passed, and he still missed Iran, he decided in his early 20s to return. Having done so, he soon realizes, like other idealists, that Khomeini is as bad as the Shah, and now, in prison, he recalls the disillusionment of his return as he wandered around Tehran, met disaffected young women who picked up men, and made the decision that will cost him his life. Spurred by the remarks of Behrooz, an older friend, that to change the Mullahs is impossible, Arash decides to mount his own protest. He starts defacing the paper currency, on which Khomeini’s picture is printed; the notes, covered with slogans and graffiti, begin circulating, and Arash is pleased to see he is being imitated. But in Khomeini’s Iran, it’s only a matter of time before the authorities respond. Uneven but, still, a moving lament for what could have been—and a grim reminder of thepenalties for dissent.
