Mesmerizing, dreamlike prose distinguishes this quirky twist on Lolita,
in which a 15-year-old girl finds herself deeply obsessed with a man 20 years her senior. The narrator, who remains unnamed, is first attracted to Mehkti, a Uzbek immigrant, because he speaks the same language as her absent father. Born in Tehran, the narrator moved to the United States when she was very young and has spent much of her life mourning what she lost: her culture, her language, her father. Her successfully remarried American mother barely notices when her daughter, previously a top student, starts skipping school and spending most of her days and nights at Mekhti's apartment. Thus begins a twisted relationship that develops over the course of several months while Mekhti's wife is in New York with relatives, waiting to give birth to her second child. The narrator submits to Mekhti's sexual advances, as well as to his forays into darker forms of sexual manipulation, though her fierce love for him is childlike and instinctive. Her blank, unflinching recitation of events loops its way forward, revisiting pivotal points in the relationship and neatly conveying the passivity to which she succumbs. Though the ease with which she detaches herself from her previous life may strain credibility, this is a convincing portrait of adolescent alienation and naked need. (Mar.)
