Mehrdad Balali

I've put off writing a review about this book because I have very mixed feelings about it. On one hand it was a fascinating look at Iran during the Shah's reign. On the other, it was a book about a group of people that I found very unlikeable. The father, supposedly charming, was a wastrel who spent his money on other women, his car, and his own enjoyment yet at times abandoned his family and left them living a life of squalor. I found the the adult version of the narrator to be weak, whiny, and aimless. His life as a child was more interesting. However, even with these criticisms, this book has stayed with me long after I've read it.… (más)

Shahed, the main character in this book, grew up in Tehran but now lives in California where he is unhappily employed as a gas station attendant. After the death of an on and off girlfriend in California, he returns to Tehran to confront the ghosts of his past, most particularly those concerning his father who died three years earlier.

Shahed's father was a gadfly who squandered any money that the family acquired on “friends” who conveniently appeared to enjoy his largesse and on his many girlfriends, leaving his family impoverished and leaving his wife to have to provide for the family with what little she could successfully keep from him. Houri is the object of Shahed's childish affections, a friend of his mothers who eventually becomes yet another one of his father's conquests. Eventually Shahed is able to realize his dream of leaving his father behind and moving to the United States. This is in the late 1960's when Iran is still a secular nation.

When Shahed returns to Tehran in the early 1980's, he returns to a much different city, one ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. The contrast from the Tehran of his youth to the Tehran under fundamentalist rule actually causes him to be sentimental for the father who tortured him so in his youth.

I found this book to be very well written. The account of being an immigrant to the United States of Iranian descent in the late sixties and early eighties is much grittier and more realistic than other similar books, from the unsatisfying choice of employment to the overt racism which Shahed encounters. In contrast, Shahed's former life in Iran is by no means idealized. From the poverty of his background, to the the account of his father's selfishness, to his encounters with cruel headmasters and his Opium addicted uncle E, this is a much earthier depiction of pre-revolution Iran than one usually encounters. Highly recommended.… (más)

In the style of THE KITE RUNNER, HOURI is about a man's trip back to his homeland of Iran to confront his tormented childhood. I enjoyed the non-linear plot, taking the reader from present to past in short episodes, allowing the reader to better compare and understand how his horrible past shaped his hollow present. Balali gives a vivid view of life in Iran, both past and present.

This is definitely the best Early Reviewers book I've read; however, I thought that the conclusion could have been a bit stronger and given more closure. In addition, I don't understand why the novel is entitled HOURI, the protagonist's childhood love, when it really seems to focus on his relationship with his father. I also did not like how the narrator seems to fall into the pit of idealizing his father after his death: something he mocks his mother and other relatives for doing. I understand that he needed to get over his past to embrace his future; however, I think he could have just realized what a horrible person his father was and that it was not his fault -- instead of claiming that he simply enjoyed life.

With a little more thought and closure, this book could have been up to par with THE KITE RUNNER; it deserves 3.5 stars as it is now.… (más)

As I read this book, my eyes were open to a different world. A world that was going on in my lifetime, but thousand of miles away, Iran during the years of the Shah. Shahed looks back on his childhood to try and make sense of his life and he is conflicted. His father, Baba, is an appalling father, and an appalling husband, but there is an admiration there. Baba is a man who tries to get the most out of his life. Maybe he should have never married and had children, but he did and at times he did bring them happiness. His wife and children were thrilled when he threw them a bone and spent time with him. Can you really hate a man that you so wanted to be with?

"Houri" gives you a little glimpse into pre-Revolutionary Iran while telling the story of a young man trying to make sense of his life. I truly enjoyed reading this book!… (más)