Moon Brow

In this beautiful and ambitious novel, Mandanipour (Censoring an Iranian Love Story) tells the story of Amir Yamini, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War who lost his left arm and much of his memory in battle. By day, Amir is confined to his family’s mansion in Tehran, left to aimlessly wander the gardens under the eye of his father’s guards. But by night, Amir is visited in his dreams by a woman he knows as Moon Brow, his true love, whose identity he cannot recall. With the help of his skeptical sister, Reyhaneh, Amir begins tracking down the loose ends of his life before the war in a desperate attempt to find Moon Brow. Amir’s quest takes him from Tehran to the ravaged mountains of western Iran. There, his lost arm and the wedding ring it may have held could be the key to learning Moon Brow’s identity. Set in Iran before and after the revolution, Mandanipour’s novel is by turns comic and tragic, both a fantastic love story and a searing portrait of a nation caught between its past and future. Mandanipour’s story is imaginative and captivating. (Apr.)