Days of God: The Revolution in Iran and Its Consequences

British novelist and journalist Buchan traveled to Iran as an undergraduate in the 1970s. Shocked by its dissipated modernity, he says, “I thought I had come too late to see what I had come to see, forgetting an ancient lesson: that in a year or two even this, also, would be obliterated.” His deep connection to the country serves him well in this sweeping panorama of the Shah’s Iran and its rejuvenation, occlusion, and disintegration under Khomeini. Buchan’s dry wit suffuses the poetic and philosophical—if not always straightforward—text; characters appear in major episodes before they have been properly introduced, events are mentioned in passing before they unfold. He devotes equal space to critical yet sympathetic portraits of the Rezas and to Khomeini. Of the first Pahlavi Shah, he says, “In introducing the notion of a powerful state, Reza was the most influential Iranian of the last century, more influential even than Ruhollah Khomeini.” The Ayatollah, pensive and closed to the world, drowned his religion and his country in a ruthless obscurantism: “It is said that once in Isfahan, the great Safavid divine Majlisi gave an apple to a Jew.... No such stories are told of Ruhollah Khomeini.” Agent: Joy Harris, Joy Harris Literary Agency. (Oct. 15)