Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer

Almost like clockwork, a book comes out every three months or so that gets a lot of praise that more or less boils down to "Oh my goodness, a person from <fill in ethnic group or country here> wrote a book!" On the face of it, this book certainly fit that mold. To its credit, it was better than most of these books. To its detriment, it wasn't much better than most of these books.

The book is about a wealthy family right after the shah was deposed in Iran. The book was written by a woman whose family fled Iran when she was 10 (and she wrote a book!!!) The book is very heavy-handed, simplistic, and, well, a bit childish, I thought. Sure, autocratic regimes are bad, and they screw innocent people. But the satire of Animal Farm or darkness and depth of Darkness at Noon are much more effective. (I highly recommend both.)

That said, her (rather simplistic) portrayal of post-revolution Iran (and hints of pre-revolution Iran -- had she brought these contrasts into the book more, it would have been better) illustrate again something that many Americans take for granted. As much as we complain about our government (and as much as I will continue to do so), we've been much better off than most of the world in the last century in this regard. Could be better, sure, but could be much worse. At least here, the people with the guns are at least somewhat restrained in throwing around their power.