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Overview
Chloe Fowler is the most unliberated woman she knows: disarmingly delicate and pretty, and not averse to putting either attribute to its best use, married, young, and satisfied with her normal American life as wife and mother. Yet Chloe is about to be liberated from everything she has ever known—in a place where her ordinary notions of reason and reality will run headlong into a wall of intrigue, and where every idea she has about herself will be put to the test.While visiting Iran with her husband, Chloe is left to travel alone when he is summoned home unexpectedly. Much to her surprise, she finds herself drawn to the life she encounters in Iran; intoxicated by each exotic sight which reminds her how far from home she really is; both comforted and unsettled by the group of foreign and Iranian physicians and their wives who take her in. However, her exhilaration crashes when her rooms are searched, and odd, often frightening events begin to occur, exposing the darker side of this "colonial life." Persian Nights follows Chloe on a voyage through the seductively inexplicable, and has all the qualities one expects from the gifted author of Le Divorce—the quirky, vivid atmosphere; the intelligent, humane voice; the compelling narrative. Once again Diane Johnson delivers an entertaining novel of an appealing woman caught up in a mysterious world of change and intrigue.
Synopsis
From the author of "Le Divorce" comes another alluring, fast-paced novel of an American woman abroad. While visiting Iran with her husband, Chloe Fowler is left to travel alone when he is summoned home unexpectedly. Initially drawn to the life she encounters in Iran, Chloe soon experiences frightening events that exposes the darker side of this "colonial life". 352 pp. 10,000 print.
Library Journal
Chloe Fowler is traveling with her doctor-husband to a temporary residency in prerevolutionary Iran when he is unexpectedly called home. Chloe, not a feminist but an adventuresome woman who had planned to study Sassanian pottery while in Iran, is persuaded to go on alone. Once accustomed to her exotic new environment, she becomes involved with one of her husband's colleagues, to whom she had been attracted in the past, and develops an affinity for the people and the country. As she slowly begins to rethink her life, the tense political climate moves toward the onset of the revolution and evacuation of Americans. In her sixth novel, Johnson masterfully blends politics, self-discovery, love, and death, and the meatiness of her style reflects an impressive knowledge both of Iranian culture and of basic human relationships. Recommended. Kimberly G. Allen, Supreme Court Lib., Washington, D.C.