Caspian Rain [Hardcover]

Gina B. Nahai (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2007

From the best-selling author of Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith, a stirring, lyrical tale that offers American readers a unique insight into the inner workings of Iranian society. In the decade before the Islamic Revolution, Iran is a country at the brink of explosion. Twelve-year-old Yaas is born in Tehran, into an already divided family: Her father is the son of wealthy Iranian Jews who are integrated into the country s upper-class, mostly Muslim, elite; her mother was raised in the slums of South Tehran, one street away from the old Jewish ghetto. Yaas spends her childhood navigating the many layers of Iranian society. Her task, already difficult because of the disparity in her parents worldview, becomes all the more critical when her father falls in love with a beautiful woman from a noble Muslim family. As her parents marriage begins to crumble, and the country moves ever closer to revolution, Yaas is plagued by a mysterious, and terrifying, illness. And when she learns that her father is about to abandon her and her mother to immigrate to America with his mistress Yaas becomes determined to use her best effort to save herself and her family. At once a cultural exploration of an as-yet unfamiliar society, and a psychological study of the effects of loss, Caspian Rain takes the reader inside the tragic and fascinating world of a brave young girl struggling against impossible odds.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her stirring fourth novel, Nahai explores the struggles of an Iranian family in the tenuous decade before the Islamic revolution. Twelve-year-old Yaas narrates her family's story, beginning before her birth at her parents' unlikely meeting. Her mother, Bahar, lives in the Jewish slums with her less-than-respectable family—among them, a seamstress who can't sew, a cantor who can't sing, a Muslim convert and a ghost. Bahar's fortuitous encounter with Omid Arbab, the son of wealthy Iranian Jews, results in a marriage that quickly disintegrates, due to class pressures and Bahar's desire for a measure of independence. Yaas then embarks on what is, at times, an overly lyrical account of her difficult and lonely childhood. She senses that she is an unwelcome disappointment to her mother, whose behavior toward her daughter ranges from inattentive to cruel. When Omid becomes involved in a public affair with the wealthy and beautiful Niyaz and Yaas begins going deaf, the Arbab family spirals out of control. Despite a clunky subplot involving Bahar's ghost brother and a too-easy resolution, the novel is a poignant tale of a damaged family. (Sept.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Gina Nahai, who left Iran as an adolescent, offers a rare glimpse into one family’s inner sanctum prior to Iran’s Islamic Revolution. A tragic story told in memoir form, Caspian Rain reveals the limitations of their lives against the class struggles and conflict between tradition and modernism that defined pre-Revolution Iran. Engaging characters (particularly the 12-year-old Yaas), some beautiful writing (with a little magical realism thrown in, including the existence of Ghost Brother), and a compelling story propelled critics along. A few reviewers noted a slightly pretentious style and tone, some overly precious moments, and a limited view of the Jewish-Iranian diaspora. When it’s at its best, however, Caspian Rain is a fascinating, tragic coming-of-age story.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 290 pages
• Publisher: MacAdam/Cage; First Edition ~1st Printing edition (September 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596922516
• ISBN-13: 978-1596922518
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,087,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "You are never the same ... once you have seen the green of the Caspian.", August 26, 2007

By 

Amanda Richards (Georgetown, Guyana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Caspian Rain (Hardcover)

This story takes place in Iran, in the years before the Islamic revolution. Told by a young girl named Yaas (meaning "poet's jasmine" in Farsi) we learn of the peculiar circumstances under which her parents first laid eyes on each other, and the troubled relationship that denied both mother and daughter a normal life.

The majority of the story is about Bahar (meaning "spring") the girl's mother, who comes from the Jewish slums. Her family is best described as dysfunctional, but probably no more so than many others in the neighborhood. Bahar's mother is a seamstress whose wealthy customers will admit that she can't sew, but is honest and charges low fees for her work. Her father is a cantor whose voice has only carried him as far as weddings and funerals, and her siblings include a slacker dude with aspirations to be an opera singer; a brother who converted to Islam to acquire wealth; a ghost brother who died when he was ten but hasn't yet accepted this fact; an unmarried older sister, and another who is unhappily married with two children.

From this background, a chance meeting with Omid (meaning "hope") eventually takes the girl out of the ghetto, but the stigma remains for life, and unfortunately she gets no support from her husband who almost immediately acquires other interests when he learns that she has a mind of own. A series of unfortunate events unfold, one disappointment being the arrival of a daughter when the experts had foretold the birth of a son. Yaas finds her young life consumed by her mother's longing for acceptance as Bahar tries to relive her life through her daughter.

The narrative is richly descriptive, with several intriguing sub-plots involving a tango dancer, a German couple with a terrible past, illicit and tragic relationships and more, but the story comes to a much too sudden stop after the long journey of hope.



Amanda Richards, August 27, 2007

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely and graceful, November 1, 2007

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Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Caspian Rain (Hardcover)

"What do you do with a loss you can neither cure, nor accept, nor overcome?" asks the narrator toward the end of CASPIAN RAIN, the new novel from Gina B. Nahai. This question comes at the end of the book, even though it weaves through the entire story. The characters are colored by loss; in fact, loss seems to be what defines them. Because there is a sweetness to Nahai's prose, an otherwise gloomy and hopeless tale is lovely and graceful.

One afternoon in Tehran, a schoolgirl who isn't beautiful but is full of energy catches the eye of an unhappy young man. His engagement has been called off (he was deemed too cold and unemotional by the bride-to-be), and he is looking for a suitable wife. Bahar is from the city's poor Jewish ghetto, and her family is stunningly unsuccessful (a seamstress who cannot sew, a cantor who cannot sing), debased (a sister horribly abused by her husband), shamed (a brother converted to Islam) and haunted (a brother who died in childhood). Omid's family is wealthy and assimilated into Tehran's upper crust, where the distinction between Jews and Muslims fades just a bit. Each family warns against the marriage, but Bahar and Omid, to the consternation and anger of all, wed nevertheless.

From the beginning the marriage is miserable; Omid wants a subservient wife, and Bahar dreams of finishing school to become a teacher. Neither one finds happiness with the other, and the resentment on the part of their families only makes them feel more isolated. Eventually they each find refuge; Omid in an affair with the beautiful and worldly Niyaz, and Bahar in her daughter, Yaas. Omid's very public affair with Niyaz humiliates Bahar, who is also disappointed by Yaas; she had hoped he would be more of a source of pride. Bahar and Omid ignore for years the signs that something is wrong with Yaas, until it becomes too obvious to overlook any longer.

For Bahar, Yaas's increasing deafness brings further shame on her and stirs up emotions her family would rather not deal with. Although Omid is kinder to Yaas than the often cruel Bahar, he is distant and, in truth, loves Niyaz more than his daughter.

In CASPIAN RAIN, the story of this tense family is set against the backdrop of Tehran leading up to the Revolution --- a place of mixed heritage and religion, full of eccentric characters (all, too, faced with the burden of loss), and both ambition and despair. Nahai's vision is mostly a bleak one: women subjugated to husbands or disappointed by lovers, parents ashamed of children, dreams deflated and talents generally wasted. This is all in the context of the Jewish community of Iran, struggling to maintain identity yet often exchanging it to gain power or a sense of security.

Nahai's writing is poetic and original, sometimes stark and sometimes transcendent. Poetic and original also describes this tale, which takes readers into the Jewish community of Tehran through the life of Yaas, who is very much an outsider to Tehran and both of the Jewish families she was born into. It is in the ghosts and oddballs that she finds self-recognition.

In asking what to do with devastating loss, Yaas and her creator Nahai decide to look for the slightest sliver of hope and fashion a good story.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars unforgettable, February 14, 2008

By 

naz - See all my reviews

This review is from: Caspian Rain (Hardcover)

Reading Caspian Rain, by Gina Nahai, is like opening a golden treasure chest. Inside it, you will find all kinds of intriguing and fascinating objects. There are several interconnected stories being told . First there is the heartbreaking story of an innocent little girl, Yaas, who desperately longs for the love of her parents. In reading the book, the reader can feel her anguish, as she tries every which way to be noticed and loved. There is the story of the intelligent and ambitious Bahar, Yaas's mother, a story in which the reader can actually taste the bitterness that Bahar is left with, when she realizes that she cannot conquer any of the barriers that will forever keep her from realizing any of her dreams. There is the story of Omid, an emotionally stunted man who, while being the son of privilege, has come from a community which, as a result of being faced with deep prejudices, has had to downplay its' ethnicity and become self loathing . Finally, there are the very rich descriptions of the sounds, sights and smells of Tehran, a fourth character in the novel; a bustling city where the contradictions between the old and the new are funny, tragic and endless. The book was truly unforgettable.