September 11, 2023
Abdoh (Out of Mesopotamia) offers a moving and nuanced study of gender and sexuality in contemporary Iran. Issa has reluctantly returned to Tehran from New York City (“sometimes there simply was no story of triumphing elsewhere in the world”). Back home, his longtime friend Nasser wants him to help take revenge on an unnamed widower whose wife set herself on fire after years of abuse. En route to visit the widower, Issa remembers the persecution that Hashem, his late queer brother, faced in their neighborhood. When they finally confront the widower, Issa is struck by the “futile maleness of it all.” The plot, such as it is, follows Issa as he reckons with the various contradictions of religious law and codes of patriarchal honor. One episode involves Mehran, an old friend of Hashem’s who’s now in a relationship with Nasser. When Nasser tells Issa he plans to force Mehran into gender reassignment surgery so their relationship can be legal, Issa is disgusted. Out of this sad, low-key chronicle, Abdoh brings life to Issa’s longing, which is fueled by memories of his brother (“Don’t forget this is the land of One Thousand and One Nights, Issa. Anything is possible,” Hashem once told him). It’s an artful rendering of hope amid despair. Agent: Jessica Papin, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.
May 31, 2024
Surrounded by a culture of machismo and violence in Tehran, Issa contends with the many faces of love and gender. His brother Hashem, a queer playwright, has died, and so has Issa and Hashem's father, who violently opposed Hashem's sexuality. Issa's friend, Nasser, wants his lover, Mehran, an old friend of Hashem's, to undergo gender-confirming surgery so that their relationship can be legitimatized in the eyes of others, but Mehran prefers to remain as he is. A married friend solicits gay sex at a nearby park, and a possible love interest falls in love with a trans man. Issa is tolerant of the choices other people make, but he can't make up his mind about what he himself wants. He drifts into a relationship with a man, but his commitment is not assured. Meanwhile, the rights of women in Iran are debated. For the audiobook of Abdoh's (Out of Mesopotamia) novel, Egyptian American narrator Amin El Gamal supplies a wide variety of voices and tones and keeps the story moving with skillful timing. VERDICT Abdoh's layered and complex tale captures the confusion and chaos of conflicting attitudes toward gender and sexuality while providing insight into life in modern Tehran.--Joanna M. Burkhardt
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