The Rug Merchant [Paperback]

Meg Mullins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 2007

At the heart of Meg Mullins's debut novel is one of the most touchingly believable characters in recent fiction, a gentle soul in the body of an Iranian exile in New York. Ushman Khan sells exquisite hand-woven rugs to a wealthy clientele that he treats with perfect rectitude. He is lonely, and his loneliness becomes unbearable when he learns that his wife in Iran is leaving him. But when a young woman named Stella comes into his store, what ensues is a love story that is all the more moving because its protagonists understand tragedy. The Rug Merchant will sweep readers away with its inspiring, character-rich tale about shaking free from disappointment and finding connection and acceptance in whatever form they appear.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

New York City teems with quiet desperation in this lucidly written but languid debut novel. The titular carpet salesman, Ushman Khan, has left his mother and his wife, Farak, in Iran in order to make a new start in America. Told from Khan's perspective, the narrative traces his subtle acculturation into Western life while he sets up shop and develops loyal customers like the wealthy socialite Mrs. Roberts. He plans for his wife to join him, but learns that she has divorced him for a Turkish salesman. Crushed, Ushman buys plane tickets to Paris he will never use and finds temporary, self-loathing comfort in a prostitute. Only when he meets Stella, a Barnard freshman, does he begin to see a way out of his isolation. Like him, Stella is an outsider struggling with loss and looking for connection, but Ushman must first resolve his conflicted feelings about women and sex and American culture. Originally developed as a short story that appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2002, this melancholy novel droops under the weight of a sympathetic but tentative, passive protagonist who can find no real solution to his profound alienation. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Ushman Khan lives a lonely and anonymous life in New York City, selling the exquisite handwoven rugs he imports from his home in Iran. He waits for the day when he has enough money saved to send for his wife, Farak, to join him. But Farak, embittered by her fifth miscarriage and weary of caring for Ushman's demanding elderly mother, leaves him for another man--a devastating act, barely comprehensible to Ushman, which leaves him stuck in America with his "lousy sham of a life." A chance encounter at Kennedy Airport introduces him to Stella, a Barnard student half his age who has recently experienced the first sorrow in her young life--her mother's failed attempt at suicide. The two are intuitively drawn to one another, each one sensing the other's unspoken bereavement--an emotional bond leading to a powerful sexual relationship that transforms them both. Ushman lingers in the reader's mind--a wounded soul, comfortable in his "routine of solitary misery," who is able to transcend sorrow, however fleetingly. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 258 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143112090
• ISBN-13: 978-0143112099
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,748,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Didn't expect to like it so much!, August 9, 2006

By 

Numbbaby - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Rug Merchant (Hardcover)

I usually read thrillers such as "The Da Vinci Code" or high-fantasy novels by the likes of George R. R. Martin, and I count "Aliens" as my all-time favorite movie. So, not the type of person who, upon hearing that a book is about an Iranian rug dealer and his relationship with a young American woman, shouts, "Awesome! Bring it on!"

Yet circumstances led me to read this book, which I started with some trepidation. (I've been burned occasionally by books with reviews that state, "Well-written," and "true-to-life characters," which can sometimes translate to, "Difficult, hard to chisel through prose," and "boring.")

"Well-written" here means an eloquent, fast-moving writing style that effortlessly meshes the interesting, hard-to-predict, and dare I say it, true-to-life characters (in a good way) with subtle truths about human nature that deep down we all know, but since we rarely see them discussed we can't help but smile as we read them. (One tiny example, "Ushman looks at the lighted windows and yearns to be let in. Even if there is no soccer match on TV. Just to sit around a table with people in the middle of the night, their camaraderie heightened by the absurdity of the hour.")

For me, this was a page-turner in a far different manner than what I'm used to, but a page-turner nonetheless. Highly recommended (even if you DO have a book about rampaging prehistoric sharks on the top of your Wish List).

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rich and moving, May 4, 2006

By 

Stephanie Cowell (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rug Merchant (Hardcover)

This novel is as rich, moving and complex as the rarest handmade carpet which its lonely Iranian protagonist sells. He has grown up with them, and the selling of them takes him away from his much adored wife in Iran to New York City. His wife, made miserable and blaming Ushman for her inability to bear a child to term, refuses to follow him, takes up with a lover and leaves him. But he cannot leave her in his heart, even though he is fascinated by and much loves a young college student who is far from his culture and his melancholy soul. The portrait of Ushman is one of the deepest portraits of a man I have read. I closed the book a few times because I felt I had in decency to look away from the intimacy of his hopes and his pain as he struggles with the strangeness of his new country when all he longs for is his old life. Such a tender man, so complex! What a wonderful book! I will be reading it again soon.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nothing more than a desk, a chair, and a small stack of rugs, July 29, 2007

By 

Amanda Richards (Georgetown, Guyana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rug Merchant (Paperback)

This is the story of Ushman, an immigrant Iranian rug merchant who owns a small establishment ideally located on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. His wife is still in Iran, looking after his ailing mother and regularly sending him high quality rugs for his wealthy customers. Ushman dreams of the day his wife will join him in America, although he realizes that his mother's illness makes this not immediately possible.

The cultural differences are very evident, and when Ushman's long distance relationship deteriorates, he becomes lost and confused. It isn't long before loneliness overcomes him, and we learn that he feels insecure in seeking out the company of American women. His subsequent encounters with three women of completely different backgrounds make up the major part of the story, and we learn more about his character through his interaction with these women.

The female characters could have been better developed, and we don't really get into them as much as we do Ushman. Instead, the author prefers to dwell in great detail on the emotional turmoil and uncertainty that Ushman brings to new relationships, personal or professional. By the end you'll realize that this is a short story stretched into a novel, but then again, one woman's padding may well be another's evocative narrative.

Amanda Richards, July 29, 2007