Caspian Rain (Hardcover)

~ Gina B. Nahai (Author)
Key Phrases: The Opera Singer, The Tango Dancer, The Lover (more...)

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: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #557,380 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars unforgettable, February 14, 2008

By	naz - See all my reviews

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.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

"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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous, February 17, 2008

By	Adrienne Sharp (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

With lush prose and surgical precision, Nahai examines pre-revolutionary Iran, a country hobbled by a social system so oppressive it crushes every one within it. Muslims and Jews live side by side, and each of their worlds is as socially stratified as the other. The novel is narrated by the young daughter of a wealthy Jew and her penniless mother, and she details their increasing desperation as her father falls in love with a Muslim woman. His abandonment of them leaves them emotionally bereft and socially isolated in a world that has no place for them. Brilliant and affecting. You will think about this novel for days after reading it.