Jumping Over Fire

by Nahid Rachlin

Fleeing a neocolonial oil town in southern Iran as Khomeini rises to power, the Ellahi family emigrates to the US, where Nora and her adopted brother Jahan struggle to end their incestuous attachment, get through college, and forge independent lives. Confronted by anti-Iranian hostility, Jahan is drawn to Islam, ultimately going back to join the Iranian army to fight Saddam Hussein, while Nora takes advantage of the greater opportunities and personal freedom for women here.

Nahid Rachlin is the Iranian-American author of Veils, Foreigner, Married to a Stranger, and The Heart's Desire. She teaches at New School University and the Unterberg Poetry Center in New York.

Genres: Iran, Fiction, Historical Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2006

About the author

Books by Nahid Rachlin: nahidr@rcn.com
http://www.amazon.com/Nahid-
Nahid Rachlin went to Columbia University Writing Program on a Doubleday-Columbia Fellowship and then went on to Stanford University MFA program on a Stegner Fellowship. Her publications include a memoir, PERSIAN GIRLS (Penguin), four novels, JUMPING OVER FIRE (City Lights), FOREIGNER (W.W. Norton), MARRIED TO A STRANGER (E.P.Dutton-Penguin), THE HEART'S DESIRE (City Lights), and a collection of short stories, VEILS (City Lights). CROWD OF SORROWS, (Kindle Singles).

You can listen to my reading of three flash-fiction stories at https://soundcloud.com/roommagazine/t...

Her individual short stories have appeared in more than fifty magazines, including The Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Redbook, Shenandoah. One of her stories was adopted by Symphony Space, “Selected Shorts,” and was aired on NPR’s around the country and two stories were nominated for Pushcart Prize. Her work has received favorable reviews in major magazines and newspapers and translated into Portuguese, Polish, Italian, Dutch, German, Arabic, and Persian. She has been interviewed in NPR stations such as All Things Considered (Terry Gross), P&W magazine, Writers Chronicle. She has written reviews and essays for New York Times, Newsday, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. Other grants and awards she has received include the Bennet Cerf Award, PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught creative writing at Barnard College, Yale University and at a wide variety of writers conferences, including Paris Writers Conference, Geneva Writers Conference, and Yale Writers Conference. She has been judge for several fiction awards and competitions, among them, Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction (2015) sponsored by AWP, Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award sponsored by Poets & Writers, Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize, University of Maryland, English Dept, Teichmann Fiction Prize, Barnard College, English Dept. For more please click on her website: website: http://www.nahidrachlin.com

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dec 14, 1245pm ~~ Review asap.

830pm ~~ The fourth and final title I have by Nahid Rachlin, Jumping Over Fire was slightly newer than the other books I had read. It was published in 2005, but still dealt with the author's perennial themes of personal awareness and the inner problems of being torn between two very different cultures. Where does a person really fit?

Nora and her brother Jahan live in Iran. Mom is American, Dad is Iranian. They met in college in the USA. Jahan was adopted and then Nora was conceived. But the children have no idea about the adoption until Nora is fourteen and Jahan fifteen. They were left alone a lot, their parents seemed to have a life in their own little bubble, which did not include the children as much as perhaps it should have. One day Nora and Jahan are snooping around and discover the adoption papers (by breaking into a filing cabinet!). And their lives change forever.

But this is not the only drama going on. The story is set (as are all of Rachlin's books) in the last years of the Shah's regime and the beginnings of the Iranian Revolution. Our family makes the decision to flee the country, to go to America. Will life there be any easier for Nora and jahan? Or will they simply have more complex issues to face?

As usual with this author, there are many layers involved here, and while it is easy to say the story was intense and compelling because of those layers, in many ways it was somewhat predictable at times. And uncomfortable also. I could partly understand Nora's feelings and her issues because of them, but I could never quite accept that she (and Jahan) actually acted upon those feelings. The idea was disgusting to think about but was not presented in a disgusting manner or I would not have kept reading.

And I must confess I was not surprised at the end when yet another secret was revealed. I suspected it from the beginning. Not that I am all that clever, just that the solution seemed logical long before Nora learned about it.

I very much enjoyed Rachlin's work, but I did give her memoir and her first two novels five stars, while only going for four with the final two. I loved the glimpses into Iranian culture and daily life, and I understand the draw the setting and topics have for the author. After all, she lived through the very time period that she writes so dramatically about. But I do wonder sometimes if she has ever managed to come to terms with that time in her life. Do her short stories deal with the same background issues? Is that time period something that she simply cannot look away from? I don't know, but I wish her peace either way, and I say thank you for sharing these stories with the world.

[Barbara Matros · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is about desire--the forbidden incestuous desire of siblings, the desire of a woman to self-actualize, to break free of the misogynistic bonds of her culture, the desire of an artist to express himself artistically in a family which does not value his talent, and finally the desire of both siblings to find their roots in an effort to learn who they really are. The novel is set at a time when the Shah is ousted and with him the many foreigners who worked in Iran's profitable industries. The mixed-culture family flees illegally to America where they confront bigotry, loss of status, and some economic deprivation. For the most part, the characters and story are engaging, but the American mother and Persian father are barely sketched. Their inability to read their children was for me inexplicable. Nevertheless, this was an enjoyable read.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful, sensitive coming of age story of an Iranian-American girl living in Iran and her relationship with her adopted brother. Offers good background about late 20th century history of Iran interwoven with the personal story of these 2 teenagers and their parents. Story line a little strained at a few points but still well worth the read.

[Rhonda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a great deal of trouble with this book because I didn't think it could decide what it wanted to be. While the background was ostensibly about the Shah and the fall of Iran and the aftermath of the revolution, the greater story is about the lead character, Nora, and how she grows up, first in Iran and then in the US.
This entire tale reminds me as if it were some sort of story which my aunt wished to tell me about one afternoon on the patio, but she can't help interspersing bits of gossip and ancillary stories. I want to know other things, but she insists on telling me things I really don't care about. That's how this book reads.
This does take a reasonably neutral view of the historical issues, the installation of the Shah and his downfall and the revolution. Most of what I have know seems reasonably represented, unlike the knee-jerk reactions one often reads about how the Shah was unjustly installed as a western puppet and mistreated his people with the SAVAK. Although the acculturation issue was probably ultimately significant in his downfall, his own undoing was probably more because of the overly centralized government being unresponsive to Iranian citizens' needs. I doubt they would have objected so strenuously if they thought they were getting the benefits of the changes. It didn't hurt that he believed that women should not be treated like dogs and encouraged education for all. Oh yes! He recognized Israel’s right to exist!

At the end she is reunited with her brother in Iran who has abandoned his family without a word in America where they escaped the revolution. While you think that leaving during the revolution would have been terrifying, the really terrifying part comes when Nora returns to Iran to find her brother. Having been in a similar situation in the Mideast, it is a terrifying experience to have someone stare at you like you are dirt and stare at your passport and then take it into a back room, return with it and yell questions at you for five minutes before returning it to you. You cannot help feeling like he has spit on you or worse. Islam hates women except as property.
Nora comes to find Jahan, her brother, for two reasons. First, she wants to locate her brother because he has not contacted the family after departing mysteriously from the US and, second, as she is still in love with him, she is trying to exorcise the demons which keep ruining her relationships with other men. Clues are left throughout the book so it comes as no surprise that it is revealed that Jahan is Nora's half brother. That issue about them having hot monkey sex when they were teenagers is kind of ignored. On the outside at least, they part because one of them feels Iranian and the other an American. For me, this resolution feels somewhat false and doesn't quite work. In any case I would have loved more of the daily perspective of the changes in Iran and less of the illicit love affair.

[City Lights Booksellers & Publishers · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Iranian family embroiled in Islamic revolution, the hostage crisis, incest, and exile in America

Forced to flee the country with their parents as Khomeini rises to power, Nora and Jahan Ellahi rise to the challenge of anti-Iranian hostility in America. Breaking free from their intense attachment to each other, they explore new relationships to forge independent lives. The romantic artist Jahan ultimately returns to join the army to fight Iraq, while ambitious Nora finds a life of greater opportunity and personal freedom in the U.S.

“If, as Aristotle reminds us, we are our desire, then who are we if the object of our desire is forbidden? What becomes of us if we are born in one world yet long for another? These are just two of the complex and difficult questions Nahid Rachlin explores and ultimately illuminates in this brave, engrossing, and timely novel. I recommend it highly!” – Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog

"Jumping Over Fire is a political novel with a strong dose of Wuthering Heights blended into it . . . potent subject matter . . ." – The Seattle Times

[Cyrusmoqtaderi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent novel by N. Rachlin, delving into the culture and livelihood of Iran in greater depth than her (also excellent) novel, Foreigner. Tremendously interesting as a personal take on life during the revolution (Khomeni's rise to power), especially by a family with mixed heritages (American/Iranian).

I found the use of the novel's particular brand of taboo love to be moderately unsettling, and at first difficult to read. But the strength of the novel pushes the reader quickly past this, and the slightly uncomfortable edge ultimately stands as proof of the novel's captivating hold on the reader.

In the end, I found Jumping Over Fire to be a deeper, more mature, and more fulfilling read than her other works.

[Christie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young woman who is half Iranian, and half American (father is Iranian, mother American) watches the Shah being restored to power, flees Iran with her parents and runs to America. She assimilates in the United States because she looks American, while her bother fails to assimilate, and remains the “other.” As the other, her brother also becomes friends with Islamic fundamentalists, eventually fleeing his family and going to Iran and joining the cause there.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's the story of an Iranian family (actually, Iranian father who married an American) in Iran during the Shah's last days. As a relatively non-religious family, they are less and less welcome after the Ayatollah Khomeini takes over, and they illegally escape to America. There, the whole family has trouble adapting, with the exception of the daughter, who chafed under the restrictions of life in conservative Iran. A really vivid portrait of Iran, as well as the Iranian experience in America.

[Raeann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I chose to read this book because I wanted to read an Iranian woman author. Though actually both the narrator and the author are half-American, half-Iranian. Still, it was interesting to read this coming of age story of a young woman searching for her identity and coming of age first in pre-revolutionary Iran and later as an American immigrant. About straddling cultures and making choices.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another terrific book by Nahid Rachlin. The story of an American mother, Iranian father, adopted son and biological daughter trying to respect and mix the cultures of Iran and America while maintaining their sanity.

[Laurel Deloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Iranian family embroiled in Islamic revolution, the hostage crisis, incest, and exile in America Forced to flee the country with their parents as Khomeini rises to power, Nora and Jahan Ellahi rise to the challenge of anti-Iranian hostility in America

[Narine · Rating 3 out of 5]

read it in one day fantastic book

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many story threads not fully developed. An interesting, but not great, book.

[Panteha]

I would not recommend this book. The protagonist's character was not really fully developed.

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story was very interesting in itself, but I though the writing lacked literary quality.

[Feathzzz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read while in jail. Actual rating : 2.3

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 3/4 stars