The Rug Merchant [Hardcover]

Meg Mullins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 2006

A sparkling debut novel about an unlikely romance between an Iranian immigrant and an American college student

Isolated and far from his native Iran, Ushman Khan has worked hard to build a wealthy, reliable clientele for his wares: exquisite hand-woven rugs from his home city of Tabriz. With perfect rectitude, he caters to clients like New York's Upper East Side grand dame Mrs. Roberts, who plies him for stories about his exotic origins and culture to feed her own imagination. But like many immigrants, he's living only half a life. He dreams of the day his beloved wife, Farak, will be able to join him in New York and complete his vision of the American dream. But when she tells him that she is leaving him for another man, Ushman is shattered. He begins to wander aimlessly through the terminals of JFK Airport, imagining a now-impossible reunion with Farak. Unexpectedly, he meets Stella, a Barnard College student who has just bade farewell to her parents en route for an Italian vacation. After Stella, isolated in her own way, finds herself at Ushman's Manhattan store, they embark on an improbable and powerful romance. Together this American girl from the Deep South and the Iranian aesthete form a tender bond that awakens them both to the possibility of joy in a world full of tragedy.

The Rug Merchant is an inspiring, character-rich tale about shaking free from disappointment and finding connection and acceptance in whatever form they appear. And in a novel of many extraordinary pleasures, Ushman Khan stands as one of the great characters in recent fiction.

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.)
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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

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First edition. edition (March 16, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670034819
• ISBN-13: 978-0670034819
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #838,786 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

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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

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Stephanie Cowell (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews
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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

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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