Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith [Hardcover]

Gina B. Nahai (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 1999

One star-studded night, five-year-old Lili witnesses her mother, Roxanna the Angel, sprout wings and vanish into the sky, undisturbed by the rules of gravity. Roxanna leaves no farewell, no word of explanation, no trace of her existence. Lili's subsequent search for her mother-spurred by the tireless efforts of her aunt Miriam the Moon-is at the heart of this mesmerizing epic tale that follows Roxanna, born as a bad-luck child in the harsh Jewish ghetto of Tehran, through the opulent world of Iran's aristocracy, to the whorehouses of Turkey and beyond, to present-day Los Angeles. At stake are Roxanna's hopes for happiness, for escaping the bonds of Old World tradition and finding forgiveness for that most egregious of sins-desire. Weaving together strands of Persian and Jewish culture, Gina Nahai brings to life a courageous circle of women rooted in their homeland but reshaping their lives in America, the land of chances and choices.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The first voice we hear in Gina B. Nahai's second novel is that of Lili, the grown daughter of a miraculous mother. When Lili was 5 and living in the Jewish ghetto of Tehran, her mother, Roxanna, "had grown wings, one night when the darkness was the color of her dreams, and flown into the star-studded night of Iran that claimed her." Thirteen years would pass, Lili informs us, before she would find her mother again. This short introduction serves as a framing device for the story of Roxanna's life, a life begun as a "bad-luck" child. According to her sister, Miriam the Moon, she "had been a runaway before she ever became a wife or a mother, before she came into existence or was even conceived."

There is an unwritten rule that any book featuring such character names as Roxanna the Angel, Miriam the Moon, and Alexandra the Cat must also contain a great deal of magical realism; Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith lives up to expectations. In addition to Roxanna's winged departure from her home and family, there are episodes involving illuminated sunflowers, dreams of flight that result in beds of white feathers, and Roxanna's final illness, a "mysterious fluid that ... started to fill her body like a poisonous presence, that oozed out of the corner of her eyes, swelled her arms and legs till she had no more use of them and turned her once-magical voice into a gurgling whisper." Besides the miraculous, this novel has undeniable sweep, beginning in Tehran, touching down in Turkey, and ending up in Los Angeles many years later with hair-raising adventures punctuating each change of address. Gina B. Nahai has crafted a lyrical novel reminiscent of the work of Isabelle Allende. Readers with a taste for the fantastic will enjoy this tale. --Alix Wilber

From Publishers Weekly

Iranian author Nahai's (Cry of the Peacock) richly embroidered, mythopoeic new novel is a tale worthy of Scheherazade. Miriam the Moon weaves for her niece Lili the spellbinding story of how Lili's mother, Roxanna the Angel, in the grip of a destiny she could not control, abandoned her five-year-old daughter without explanation and vanished into the Iranian night; she remained missing for the next 13 years. ("Free will and conscious decisions are mere inventions of minds too feeble to accept the reality of our absurd existence," Miriam tells Lily.) Beginning with Roxanna's birth in 1938 in the Jewish ghetto of Tehran, the narrative moves assuredly through her family's history and into her legend. At the time of her disappearance, in 1971, the point of view shifts from third to first person, the voice of Lili, the abandoned child. Six-year-old Lili is put on an airplane and sent off to a dreary Catholic boarding school in Pasadena, where she meets her guardian angel, a childhood friend of Roxanna's named Mercedez the Movie Star. Meanwhile, in Iran, the Shah's corrupt regime is overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and in the wave of Jewish persecution that follows, Miriam the Moon and her family flee to L.A. Eventually, Roxanna is spied in Turkey, and an affecting reunion with Lili ensues, although the ending, meant to be symbolic, does not quite ring true. The story moves along briskly, yet with a surreal edge, filled with characters who have such names as Alexandra the Cat and Jacob the Jello. The larger-than-life personalities of Roxanna and her family shine convincingly in the sections devoted to Iran, markedly less so when transplanted to L.A. Lili's struggle to know who she is, while fluidly rendered, lacks the resonance of Roxanna's, whose tale is marvelously compelling. 35,000 first printing; author tour; foreign rights sold to Germany, Sweden, Italy, the U.K., Greece and Holland.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1st edition (March 20, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151003882
• ISBN-13: 978-0151003884
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #508,209 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent; fairy tale, educational, moving; surreal., October 17, 2000

By 

Auliya "An Avid Reader" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith (Paperback)

Just wanted to mention that the ending is... well... After all the magic realism, she abandons the realism part... and delves into the completely abstract. I was enjoying myself fancying that the story was "real" and not just a metaphor for her essentially essay-like study of exile (author is a scholar of exile).... but, near the end, she makes it clear it's a metaphor. Darn. I was enjoying the illusion. Still, a really powerful and highly engaging read. You're not going to waste your money here, I promise.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tale of wondrous light that is worthy of Scheherazade!, March 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith (Paperback)

The first voice heard in this epic novel, is that of Lili, eighteen and haunted by her motherless past. Her mother, Roxanna the Angel, was "once a young woman with watercolor eyes and translucent skin...she could stop the world with her laughter.." and most importantly, "had been so light and delicate, so undisturbed by the rules of gravity and the drudgery of human existence, she had grown wings, one night....and flown into the star-studded night of Iran that claimed her." Lili was five when she saw her mother grow wings and disappear from her life only to return when Lili is eighteen.

Nahai's spellbinding imagery and vocabulary capture readers into the world of Iran and into the life of Roxanna the Angel who was destined to run, before she was even conceived. We readers enter the world of characters such as Shusha the Beautiful, Miriam the Moon, Alexandra the Cat, and Mercedez the Movie Star...where sunflowers can light up a person's existence and the sorrows of destiny and history will hold you captive forever.

I highly recommend this to everyone who likes GREAT books!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting & original, June 21, 2002

By 

B. Bauer "Brandita" (Somewhere on the 38th parallel N) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith (Paperback)

Looking for works of fiction by contemporary Iranian authors, I chanced upon Gina Nahai's novel quite by accident. And while I was not tremendously drawn in by the blurb on the back cover, reading the first two pages proved my first impressions wrong. This book is a phenomenal example of modern magical realism found in a society that one would normally not associate with that genre. But moreover, it really brings to light the plight of two groups of people: Iranian jews confined to the ghettos in their own country, and Iranian exiles forced to begin a new life in the United States. Nahai is able to expertly weave the history of her homeland with the fantastic, but does so in a way that is both easy and enjoyable to read.