Half the World

i really enjoyed reading this book, and highly recommend it for anyone interested in iran during the 1979 revolution, in period stories from this time, or fans of literary fiction in general.

the book tells the story of a young western couple living and working in iran at the time of the 1979 revolution. for their own reasons, each feels compelled to stay in iran when civil unrest makes living stressful and then ultimately dangerous. a young iranian man takes the position of antagonist for much of the story. he, along with the young couple, make up the point-of-view characters.

i found the pov characters realistic and likable. their individual histories inform their personal struggles within the narrative, and their reactions are believable. in particular, the young antagonist's personality and personal struggles only became clear as the story progressed.

thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

Half the World by Leissa Shahrak transports readers to 1977, where newlyweds Angela and Doug Weston move to Iran, unaware of the revolution brewing on the horizon. Angela takes on a teaching role at the University of Esfahan, striving to bridge cultural divides, despite facing resistance from a failing student. Meanwhile, Doug battles insecurities and struggles to earn a bonus for his architectural firm, all while political and personal tensions grow.

As secrets from their past and present threaten to unravel their marriage, the couple’s relationship becomes entangled in the dangers of the escalating revolution, placing not just their love, but their lives, in jeopardy.

Shahrak’s historical novel brilliantly captures the turmoil of the time, making the reader feel the intense pressures of living in Iran during the 1979 revolution. I found the characters, particularly the young Iranian antagonist, to be realistic and well-developed, with their personal histories informing their decisions and struggles. The layers of tension build as the antagonist’s personality and motives unfold, making him a complex and intriguing part of the story.

This is a compelling read, especially for those interested in the Iranian Revolution, historical fiction from this era, or literary fiction in general. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and highly recommend it for its nuanced portrayal of a Western couple navigating the political upheaval and cultural complexities of the time.

Read more at The Secret Bookreview.

Leissa Shahrak’s “Half The World,” which installs its likable American protagonist, Angela Weston, and her architect husband, Doug, in 1970s pre-revolution Iran, kept putting me in mind of Kathryn Crawley’s “Walking on Fire,” which places its similarly likable protagonist, Kate Adams, in an analogously tense time in 1970s Greece, where no sooner does she arrive than she finds her credentials being checked by an ominous-looking military official in an office dotted with photos of other military men.
What role might her inquisitor have played in stories she’s heard about prisons and torture during the dictatorship, she wonders – the same sort of question wondered by Shahrak’s Angela as she arrives in Iran and takes in from her taxi window an unmarked building which she’s given to understand might house the nation’s dreaded secret police, SAVAK. “Instruments of torture, odors of burning flesh and involuntary defecation, bloodied bodies and shrill screams,” she imagines inside the building.
For all the opening scene’s portentousness about the governing regime, though, there’s no correspondingly menacing government official like Crawley's captain hovering over Shahrak’s novel. Anti-Shah sentiments proliferate, however, with “death to the Shah” and “death to America” chants becoming ever more evident as Angela feels increasingly menaced by one of her students at the university where she teaches English.
Not as strident, though, he is as some of his comrades, who would have him kill the Westons, with the ready access to them that his student status affords him. And while he resists going that far, he does burglarize their residence, hoping that will get them to leave the country.
A complicated character, he is both disruptive in Angela’s class, where he loudly supplies his own interpretations to the books under study, but also appealing enough in his way to get Angela to visit his home, where she hopes to get some further understanding of him but is unprepared for what she finds there.
Like stepping into a Dickens novel transplanted to Iran, she thinks of the scene of squalor and poverty she comes upon, including a girl, obviously disabled, who she supposes is his sister.
“The girl’s hair, heavy and matted,” she notes, “fell over her brow, one wisp plastered to her cheek by dried snot. Her nose ran. Drool trickled from her thick, parted lips. “
“If only she could wash the girl’s face and hair and soothe her agitation,” Angela thinks as she visits with the mother and anticipates the father’s arrival, only to learn he’s dead.
Disclosing more would be giving away too much, other than to say that, like Crawley’s novel, Shahrak’s is a depiction of American innocents caught up in upheaval abroad, the fearfulness of the immediate situation intensified for Angela by marital tensions brought on not just by the Iranian situation but also by nightmares for Doug from his involvement in the Vietnam War, an enduring American torment, which, in another parallel with Crawley’s novel, is the occasion for Greek anger throughout that novel.
An absorbing and informative read about U.S. intervention abroad, in short, Shahrak’s novel, and particularly relevant now with the question of American involvement abroad again being tested by the situations in Ukraine and Gaza.

Read my full review at Independent Book Review: https://independentbookreview.com/2024/10/09/book-review-half-the-world/