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My Part of Her
In exiled Iranian author Javad Djavahery’s captivating English debut, a youthful betrayal during a summer on the Caspian sea has far-reaching consequences for a group of friends as their lives are irrevocably altered by the Revolution.
For our unnamed confessor, the summer months spent on the Caspian Sea during the 1970s are a magically transformative experience. There, he is not the “poor relative from the North,” but a welcome guest at his wealthy cousin Nilou’s home and the gatekeeper of her affections. He revels in the power of orchestrating the attentions of her many admirers, granting and denying access to her would-be lovers. But in a moment of jealousy and youthful bravado, he betrays and humiliates an unlikely suitor, setting into motion a series of events that will have drastic repercussions for all of them as the country is forever transformed by the Iranian Revolution a few short years later.
Over the next twenty years, the lingering effects of that betrayal set the friends on radically different paths in the wake of political, religious, and cultural upheaval. Their surprising final reunion reveals the consequences of revenge and self-preservation as they each must decide whether and how to forget the past. Urgent and gorgeously written, My Part of Her captures the innocence of youth, the folly of love, and the capriciousness of fate as these friends find themselves on opposing sides of the seismic rifts of history.
For our unnamed confessor, the summer months spent on the Caspian Sea during the 1970s are a magically transformative experience. There, he is not the “poor relative from the North,” but a welcome guest at his wealthy cousin Nilou’s home and the gatekeeper of her affections. He revels in the power of orchestrating the attentions of her many admirers, granting and denying access to her would-be lovers. But in a moment of jealousy and youthful bravado, he betrays and humiliates an unlikely suitor, setting into motion a series of events that will have drastic repercussions for all of them as the country is forever transformed by the Iranian Revolution a few short years later.
Over the next twenty years, the lingering effects of that betrayal set the friends on radically different paths in the wake of political, religious, and cultural upheaval. Their surprising final reunion reveals the consequences of revenge and self-preservation as they each must decide whether and how to forget the past. Urgent and gorgeously written, My Part of Her captures the innocence of youth, the folly of love, and the capriciousness of fate as these friends find themselves on opposing sides of the seismic rifts of history.
256 pages, Paperback
First published May 19, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 17, 2020
This is the English debut of Javad Djavahery, about summers at the Caspian Sea right as Iran headed into revolution. The translator note at the beginning explained that she didn't attempt to remove the traditional storytelling method of providing a lot of context (interestingly this happened in the novel I read from Oman too, where when a character was introduced you'd sometimes hear parts of their greater story.) That is an element I had to warm to. The author writes about this summer beach side community as something that defines the season for his family, making it even more upsetting when it changes.
This is a somewhat sinister novel. The narrator is trying to be a puppet master even at 13 and the male gaze on his older female cousin wasn't pleasant to experience as a reader. There are secrets hinted at from the beginning, and the webs of deceit and surveillance surprised me despite the other books I've read on this era.
I had a review copy from the publisher through Edelweiss; it came out in February but I only recently heard about it and wanted to read it as part of my reading goals.
This is a somewhat sinister novel. The narrator is trying to be a puppet master even at 13 and the male gaze on his older female cousin wasn't pleasant to experience as a reader. There are secrets hinted at from the beginning, and the webs of deceit and surveillance surprised me despite the other books I've read on this era.
I had a review copy from the publisher through Edelweiss; it came out in February but I only recently heard about it and wanted to read it as part of my reading goals.
June 15, 2020
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝒀𝒐𝒖’𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒆𝒆. 𝑰𝒕’𝒍𝒍 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖, 𝒊𝒇 𝒊𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒏’𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒔 𝑰 𝒅𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒗𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈.
Remembering is exactly what our narrator does, of a summer in the 1970’s spent on the Caspian sea at Villa Rose, before the Iranian Revolution. He tells us there wasn’t even one veiled woman, then. It was an Iran at the time of the Shah, an Iran we do not know. He longs to unburden himself of the terrible guilt he has felt for so long, when in his carefree youth at just thirteen-years-old he betrayed his beautiful, sixteen-year-old distant cousin Niloufar “Nilou”. Nothing is as anticipated more every year to the local boys than the arrival of this coveted, unattainable girl. Despite being the so called keeper of her secrets (and her whereabouts on any given day), he isn’t as close to this side of the family as he makes out. Truly a poor relation from the North, son of a tailor/silkworm specialist, his family isn’t nearly as successful as Nilou’s side (filled with world travelers, engineers, city officials, doctors,) and all the wealth and prestige that entails. He remains the provincial cousin, one whose family’s modest means could never live up to the elegance, class of Nilou’s. But that summer, he has scaled the wall that has separated them. Proud to carry a sort of special rank among the fevered longings and imaginations of the boys who long for news of Nilou, he profits from it all managing the competition between two suitors for her affections and running his own little business.
Soon he is a go-between for Nilou and the intriguing Mohamad- Réza. Though, confused by the peculiarities and mystery of his cousin’s heart, he promises to do her biding. Instead, he plays a game with Mohamad- Réza until the towering, awkward, young man’s howling passions can no longer be silenced, nor controlled. It is through this poor fool’s sordid misfortunes that our mischievous, selfish narrator cements his own place at the Villa. But neither Nilou nor Mohamad- Réza are left unaffected by what happened.
Nilou longs for nothing more than to be free of the mark of wealth. Her life behind the scenes is nothing like it appears, hating her mother’s coldness and distance, unhappy with the wealth that is short on happiness. Her true longing is for warmth and love, sorely lacking in her own privileged world. Mohamad- Réza represented the simplicity she longs for, but there is a Judas in her mist. How could our thriteen-year-old narrator have understood what he set in motion? In his craftiness and with his uncle, the doctor, to look up to, it is his childish plan to become important one day. Mystified by the way things turned out for his own mother, whose marriage to his father he doesn’t understand, he longs to steer his own ship.
A change in the political climate is just the beginning. Nilou’s influential father will not remain powerful for long, a man nostalgic for for his days in the Tudeh Party. With the Iranian Revolution, society is muzzled, and the people must obey the patriotic-Islamist ideology. As the narrator tells us, the rules of the game had changed and ‘I didn’t know if I wanted to play the game’, particularly not one that could end in death or worse, imprisonment. The people are divided, disappearing. Privilege of the past catches up with Nilou’s family, and her ideas become dangerous. Naturally, our narrator finds refuge for himself. But the world of promise, the climb to the top comes to an end for him as well, even in Tehran where Russian missiles launched by the Iraqi army fill the night skies.
Then, Nilou disappears… what has become of her? Now is the time for the full confession, the whole story. Not everyone who has fled the story are truly gone. Sometimes it is those we dismiss who become the most significant in our tale. What begins as a novel reminiscing about glorying in the sun of a beautiful cousin one playful summer turns into a novel of betrayals, shame, guilt and the horrific cost of dissidence. A solid read that had me looking into the history of Iran.
About the author: Celebrated Iranian novelist and short story writer, Javad Djavahery was forced to leave his home country of Iran, settling in France as a political refugee at the age of twenty.
Published February 11, 2020
Restless Books
𝒀𝒐𝒖’𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒆𝒆. 𝑰𝒕’𝒍𝒍 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖, 𝒊𝒇 𝒊𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒏’𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒔 𝑰 𝒅𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒗𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈.
Remembering is exactly what our narrator does, of a summer in the 1970’s spent on the Caspian sea at Villa Rose, before the Iranian Revolution. He tells us there wasn’t even one veiled woman, then. It was an Iran at the time of the Shah, an Iran we do not know. He longs to unburden himself of the terrible guilt he has felt for so long, when in his carefree youth at just thirteen-years-old he betrayed his beautiful, sixteen-year-old distant cousin Niloufar “Nilou”. Nothing is as anticipated more every year to the local boys than the arrival of this coveted, unattainable girl. Despite being the so called keeper of her secrets (and her whereabouts on any given day), he isn’t as close to this side of the family as he makes out. Truly a poor relation from the North, son of a tailor/silkworm specialist, his family isn’t nearly as successful as Nilou’s side (filled with world travelers, engineers, city officials, doctors,) and all the wealth and prestige that entails. He remains the provincial cousin, one whose family’s modest means could never live up to the elegance, class of Nilou’s. But that summer, he has scaled the wall that has separated them. Proud to carry a sort of special rank among the fevered longings and imaginations of the boys who long for news of Nilou, he profits from it all managing the competition between two suitors for her affections and running his own little business.
Soon he is a go-between for Nilou and the intriguing Mohamad- Réza. Though, confused by the peculiarities and mystery of his cousin’s heart, he promises to do her biding. Instead, he plays a game with Mohamad- Réza until the towering, awkward, young man’s howling passions can no longer be silenced, nor controlled. It is through this poor fool’s sordid misfortunes that our mischievous, selfish narrator cements his own place at the Villa. But neither Nilou nor Mohamad- Réza are left unaffected by what happened.
Nilou longs for nothing more than to be free of the mark of wealth. Her life behind the scenes is nothing like it appears, hating her mother’s coldness and distance, unhappy with the wealth that is short on happiness. Her true longing is for warmth and love, sorely lacking in her own privileged world. Mohamad- Réza represented the simplicity she longs for, but there is a Judas in her mist. How could our thriteen-year-old narrator have understood what he set in motion? In his craftiness and with his uncle, the doctor, to look up to, it is his childish plan to become important one day. Mystified by the way things turned out for his own mother, whose marriage to his father he doesn’t understand, he longs to steer his own ship.
A change in the political climate is just the beginning. Nilou’s influential father will not remain powerful for long, a man nostalgic for for his days in the Tudeh Party. With the Iranian Revolution, society is muzzled, and the people must obey the patriotic-Islamist ideology. As the narrator tells us, the rules of the game had changed and ‘I didn’t know if I wanted to play the game’, particularly not one that could end in death or worse, imprisonment. The people are divided, disappearing. Privilege of the past catches up with Nilou’s family, and her ideas become dangerous. Naturally, our narrator finds refuge for himself. But the world of promise, the climb to the top comes to an end for him as well, even in Tehran where Russian missiles launched by the Iraqi army fill the night skies.
Then, Nilou disappears… what has become of her? Now is the time for the full confession, the whole story. Not everyone who has fled the story are truly gone. Sometimes it is those we dismiss who become the most significant in our tale. What begins as a novel reminiscing about glorying in the sun of a beautiful cousin one playful summer turns into a novel of betrayals, shame, guilt and the horrific cost of dissidence. A solid read that had me looking into the history of Iran.
About the author: Celebrated Iranian novelist and short story writer, Javad Djavahery was forced to leave his home country of Iran, settling in France as a political refugee at the age of twenty.
Published February 11, 2020
Restless Books
July 27, 2022
A tense, tight, gripping narrative that I found impossible to put down. And we learn plenty about Iran in this time period.
August 31, 2024
Real Rating: 4.5* of five
The Publisher Says: In exiled Iranian author Javad Djavahery’s captivating English debut, a youthful betrayal during a summer on the Caspian sea has far-reaching consequences for a group of friends as their lives are irrevocably altered by the Revolution.
For our unnamed confessor, the summer months spent on the Caspian Sea during the 1970s are a magically transformative experience. There, he is not the “poor relative from the North,” but a welcome guest at his wealthy cousin Nilou’s home and the gatekeeper of her affections. He revels in the power of orchestrating the attentions of her many admirers, granting and denying access to her would-be lovers. But in a moment of jealousy and youthful bravado, he betrays and humiliates an unlikely suitor, setting into motion a series of events that will have drastic repercussions for all of them as the country is forever transformed by the Iranian Revolution a few short years later.
Over the next twenty years, the lingering effects of that betrayal set the friends on radically different paths in the wake of political, religious, and cultural upheaval. Their surprising final reunion reveals the consequences of revenge and self-preservation as they each must decide whether and how to forget the past. Urgent and gorgeously written, My Part of Her captures the innocence of youth, the folly of love, and the capriciousness of fate as these friends find themselves on opposing sides of the seismic rifts of history.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Layers of response to this book. Most of them uncomfortable with the narrator, his assumption of power over the life of his female cousin, over the lives of the men who pursue her, and the general awfulness of a culture where that's just the way it is.
This storytelling voice is the one used throughout the book. You're told what the story will do next, where it will lead you the reader. That isn't going to be everyone's favorite technique, but it's integral to the book. It is, per Translator Ramadan, a cultural staple and thus a vital part of the story being told. As she's translated other works from French in ways that delighted me, I'm willing to trust her.
How far will a male go to possess a female? How high is up, the answer ends up being; the young woman in this iteration of that seemingly eternally fresh story represents the startlingly awful answer of "into depths of manipulation and depravity that will revolt and surprise you."
The details aren't unique, or even any more distasteful than the fact that he uses his position of trust to rifle his cousin's underwear drawer; to cause a discovery to be made that screws up her chances at escaping an ugly, exploitive sysytem; and to ruin her suitor's life entirely in his home place while simultaneously looking virtuous to a powerful man.
So we're listening to the confession of a truly despicable boy...why?
Because all this takes place on the cusp of Iran's 1979 Islamist rebellion against the Shah and his paymasters. Everything changes...for the worse...very soon after the events of the story. Even here, my goodness if he doesn't try to finagle a way to weasel in with the new, hardline regime. The risks of playing a double game with True Believers come home to him. His much-desired cousin is suddenly more vulnerable than he is. She's a woman with an education and counterrevolutionary ideas.
She disappears.
An exiled Iranian author makes his Anglophone debut in this disturbing tale of moral turpitude and the cost of power to those who only want its benefits. The story the narrator tells us, finally revealing his ugly, wizened by lust soul to the gaze of others, doesn't so much edify its readers as provide a horrible example of the wages of the truest, most unforgivable sin:
Greed.
I read it with a strong desire to douse my brain in bleach to get the pervy little bastard's cringing Uriah Heeply gloating over his power cleaned off its surfaces. To no avail, obvs. I'm decidedly not edified at the end of the read. I'm damned glad I've never met this little lickspittle. I'm even more glad I can judge him from the untested heights of US cultural privilege. I've confronted that gift again and remain knee-shakingly grateful I was never tested in this way. Would I have done better?
The Publisher Says: In exiled Iranian author Javad Djavahery’s captivating English debut, a youthful betrayal during a summer on the Caspian sea has far-reaching consequences for a group of friends as their lives are irrevocably altered by the Revolution.
For our unnamed confessor, the summer months spent on the Caspian Sea during the 1970s are a magically transformative experience. There, he is not the “poor relative from the North,” but a welcome guest at his wealthy cousin Nilou’s home and the gatekeeper of her affections. He revels in the power of orchestrating the attentions of her many admirers, granting and denying access to her would-be lovers. But in a moment of jealousy and youthful bravado, he betrays and humiliates an unlikely suitor, setting into motion a series of events that will have drastic repercussions for all of them as the country is forever transformed by the Iranian Revolution a few short years later.
Over the next twenty years, the lingering effects of that betrayal set the friends on radically different paths in the wake of political, religious, and cultural upheaval. Their surprising final reunion reveals the consequences of revenge and self-preservation as they each must decide whether and how to forget the past. Urgent and gorgeously written, My Part of Her captures the innocence of youth, the folly of love, and the capriciousness of fate as these friends find themselves on opposing sides of the seismic rifts of history.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Layers of response to this book. Most of them uncomfortable with the narrator, his assumption of power over the life of his female cousin, over the lives of the men who pursue her, and the general awfulness of a culture where that's just the way it is.
You'll see. It'll happen to you, if it hasn't already, and you will know as I do that the life you spent wanting to forget was in fact nothing but a life spent remembering.
This storytelling voice is the one used throughout the book. You're told what the story will do next, where it will lead you the reader. That isn't going to be everyone's favorite technique, but it's integral to the book. It is, per Translator Ramadan, a cultural staple and thus a vital part of the story being told. As she's translated other works from French in ways that delighted me, I'm willing to trust her.
How far will a male go to possess a female? How high is up, the answer ends up being; the young woman in this iteration of that seemingly eternally fresh story represents the startlingly awful answer of "into depths of manipulation and depravity that will revolt and surprise you."
The details aren't unique, or even any more distasteful than the fact that he uses his position of trust to rifle his cousin's underwear drawer; to cause a discovery to be made that screws up her chances at escaping an ugly, exploitive sysytem; and to ruin her suitor's life entirely in his home place while simultaneously looking virtuous to a powerful man.
So we're listening to the confession of a truly despicable boy...why?
Because all this takes place on the cusp of Iran's 1979 Islamist rebellion against the Shah and his paymasters. Everything changes...for the worse...very soon after the events of the story. Even here, my goodness if he doesn't try to finagle a way to weasel in with the new, hardline regime. The risks of playing a double game with True Believers come home to him. His much-desired cousin is suddenly more vulnerable than he is. She's a woman with an education and counterrevolutionary ideas.
She disappears.
An exiled Iranian author makes his Anglophone debut in this disturbing tale of moral turpitude and the cost of power to those who only want its benefits. The story the narrator tells us, finally revealing his ugly, wizened by lust soul to the gaze of others, doesn't so much edify its readers as provide a horrible example of the wages of the truest, most unforgivable sin:
Greed.
I read it with a strong desire to douse my brain in bleach to get the pervy little bastard's cringing Uriah Heeply gloating over his power cleaned off its surfaces. To no avail, obvs. I'm decidedly not edified at the end of the read. I'm damned glad I've never met this little lickspittle. I'm even more glad I can judge him from the untested heights of US cultural privilege. I've confronted that gift again and remain knee-shakingly grateful I was never tested in this way. Would I have done better?
March 18, 2021
A book which I devoured, "My Part of Her" is written in the traditional Iranian storytelling way. It's rawness is what makes its characters so real, credible and complex.
"My Part of Her" is a story of love and loss against the violence of the Iranian revolution of 1979. Its narrator, who remains unnamed throughout the entire book, is confessing his wrongdoings. During his reveal, we learn how self serving and cowardly he behaved and how he changed the lives of those around him. The novel begins several years before the revolution in Chamkhaleh, a village on the coast of the Caspian Sea, where the narrator was born. Every summer, his cousin, Niloufar, came with her family to spend her vacation. When she arrived the entire village centered around her due to her beauty and exotic presence which made all the young boys eager of her attention. The narrator is obviously attracted to her with a forbidden infatuation. However, being part of her family he has access to Nilou and he exploits that privilege. He looks into her possessions, even her underwear, which he sells to the other boys or he distributes them as favors. By simply telling the boys about her life, he makes sure that he has the best seat at the beach bonfires.
Nilou is starting to be interested in a particular boy, Mohamed-Réza, who sometimes serenades her. In order to remove him from the picture, the narrator shows Mohamed-Réza a vantage point directly into Nilou's room. Several nights into this he tells her father about the boy who is stalking Nilou and he is caught, while masturbating, beaten and send away from the village.
Because he cannot have Nilou's body, the narrator focuses instead on her mind. Without having a grasp or believing in a revolution, he educates her to fight against the Shah's leadership and he influences her towards the communist believes. Nilou and her mother both fight against the Shah, taking an active part in the rebellion, but when Nilou and the narrator are arrested and imprisoned, he does the most coward thing. In face of an obvious death the narrator lies in order to survive. In fact, the book can be looked at as a metaphor for Iran and the narrator as its people. Nilou was allowed to speak and dress however she wanted before the revolution but once this happened her own liberties are stripped away. The narrator has always managed to lean one way or another, in order to survive but once faced with imminent danger he will forget any loyalties just to be able to live one more day. The morale might be that no matter what we want to change we should always question change, especially political one: sometimes the new ideology, which sounds so good, might hide devastating flaws.
"My Part of Her" is a story of love and loss against the violence of the Iranian revolution of 1979. Its narrator, who remains unnamed throughout the entire book, is confessing his wrongdoings. During his reveal, we learn how self serving and cowardly he behaved and how he changed the lives of those around him. The novel begins several years before the revolution in Chamkhaleh, a village on the coast of the Caspian Sea, where the narrator was born. Every summer, his cousin, Niloufar, came with her family to spend her vacation. When she arrived the entire village centered around her due to her beauty and exotic presence which made all the young boys eager of her attention. The narrator is obviously attracted to her with a forbidden infatuation. However, being part of her family he has access to Nilou and he exploits that privilege. He looks into her possessions, even her underwear, which he sells to the other boys or he distributes them as favors. By simply telling the boys about her life, he makes sure that he has the best seat at the beach bonfires.
Nilou is starting to be interested in a particular boy, Mohamed-Réza, who sometimes serenades her. In order to remove him from the picture, the narrator shows Mohamed-Réza a vantage point directly into Nilou's room. Several nights into this he tells her father about the boy who is stalking Nilou and he is caught, while masturbating, beaten and send away from the village.
Because he cannot have Nilou's body, the narrator focuses instead on her mind. Without having a grasp or believing in a revolution, he educates her to fight against the Shah's leadership and he influences her towards the communist believes. Nilou and her mother both fight against the Shah, taking an active part in the rebellion, but when Nilou and the narrator are arrested and imprisoned, he does the most coward thing. In face of an obvious death the narrator lies in order to survive. In fact, the book can be looked at as a metaphor for Iran and the narrator as its people. Nilou was allowed to speak and dress however she wanted before the revolution but once this happened her own liberties are stripped away. The narrator has always managed to lean one way or another, in order to survive but once faced with imminent danger he will forget any loyalties just to be able to live one more day. The morale might be that no matter what we want to change we should always question change, especially political one: sometimes the new ideology, which sounds so good, might hide devastating flaws.
September 16, 2025
An odd and rewarding read.
Stylistically reminiscent of Elena Ferrante (though not nearly at that level of storytelling mastery), My Part of Her unspools in a series of deep, sweeping psychological digressions. The effect is a story that feels lived and quite real, blurry around the periphery, with a real-time grappling with guilt (many times, the narrator catches himself in a moment of bluster or dishonesty, and retracts).
But the main distinction between this book and Ferrante is that, where her novels (and her central narrator) are extraordinary in their generous field of vision, capturing nuances and depth in every character that passes through, the field of vision in My Part of Her is extraordinarily narrow, to a fault. The narrator is honest in his assessment of Nilou as an object and symbol of lust, but even as they become friends Nilou never emerges as anything resembling a character. Same for the other characters that slip in and out of this book.
That's not to say the book is not worthy -- it's pretty unfair to compare anyone to Ferrante, and this was a good, brisk and compelling read! The myopic narrator serves a purpose, forcing himself to look at what he's done, paying a penance. And the narrative of the blissful (if borderline uncomfortably blue, in describing the...impulses of teen boys) pre-revolution days on the beach is really something, although once the lens shifts to the darker, later times, I found myself wanting a lot more.
Ultimately this book is a 3.75 star read that teases so much more, which is nothing to shrug at.
Stylistically reminiscent of Elena Ferrante (though not nearly at that level of storytelling mastery), My Part of Her unspools in a series of deep, sweeping psychological digressions. The effect is a story that feels lived and quite real, blurry around the periphery, with a real-time grappling with guilt (many times, the narrator catches himself in a moment of bluster or dishonesty, and retracts).
But the main distinction between this book and Ferrante is that, where her novels (and her central narrator) are extraordinary in their generous field of vision, capturing nuances and depth in every character that passes through, the field of vision in My Part of Her is extraordinarily narrow, to a fault. The narrator is honest in his assessment of Nilou as an object and symbol of lust, but even as they become friends Nilou never emerges as anything resembling a character. Same for the other characters that slip in and out of this book.
That's not to say the book is not worthy -- it's pretty unfair to compare anyone to Ferrante, and this was a good, brisk and compelling read! The myopic narrator serves a purpose, forcing himself to look at what he's done, paying a penance. And the narrative of the blissful (if borderline uncomfortably blue, in describing the...impulses of teen boys) pre-revolution days on the beach is really something, although once the lens shifts to the darker, later times, I found myself wanting a lot more.
Ultimately this book is a 3.75 star read that teases so much more, which is nothing to shrug at.
September 25, 2024
This engaging novel describes the unfolding of the Iranian revolution from the perspective of an unnamed narrator who’s finds himself in the middle of it. I appreciated the symbolism of the major characters – Nilou representing the beautiful, mysterious Iran; Mohammed-Rijou, representing the powerful yet flawed Iran, strong but unable to communicate effectively (he’s a stutterer) unless he sings with his beautiful voice, a characteristic that complements Nilou’s beauty; and Parand, symbolizing capitalism, which both Nilou and the narrator reject. Djavahery creates an interesting dynamic among these characters in the context of political upheaval.
July 4, 2021
More like 3.5.
The opening section about that last summer on the Caspian Sea was the strongest imo. The revolution itself was glossed over, with only surface-level details provided; even when , it's hard to feel any sense of urgency because the narrator is so detached from what's happening to them. The ending was very abrupt and required some suspension of disbelief on my part.
The opening section about that last summer on the Caspian Sea was the strongest imo. The revolution itself was glossed over, with only surface-level details provided; even when , it's hard to feel any sense of urgency because the narrator is so detached from what's happening to them. The ending was very abrupt and required some suspension of disbelief on my part.
July 13, 2022
This is a beautiful book, a perfect confluence of voice, writing, and history. We don't often read stories from an Iranian perspective about the tumultuous revolution and I'm grateful to have this one to ground me.
September 21, 2022
J'ai lu ce roman en français. Je l'ai trouvé très mal écrit. L'histoire est trop répétitive, un jeune homme qui commence les activités politiques comme un gauchiste par arrogance et un envie de draguer une femme. Ça donne un image irréel de la révolution d'Iran.
August 2, 2022
this was beautifully haunting, and a riveting story that i couldn’t look away from
September 3, 2024
3.5 Stars
May 28, 2025
Whatever works for you bro
January 2, 2026
The book is a confession in a time of revolution, violence and fear. It reminds me of The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, also a book of violence.
Reviewers note that this is a book written in a traditional Iranian narrative, which makes me want to read a lot more books written by Iranian authors.
Reviewers note that this is a book written in a traditional Iranian narrative, which makes me want to read a lot more books written by Iranian authors.
February 10, 2018
«À Chamkhaleh, cette deuxième vie, nocturne, était pour nous encore plus importante que la première. Si le jour était la joie de la baignade et l’étalage de l’épiderme, le soleil et les jeux, la nuit était le domaine des rêves, le royaume infini de l’imaginaire, de l’amour et des désirs. La lande perdue où tout était possible. Ça durait tant que ça durait. On dépensait de son sommeil sans compter. On ne mégotait pas sur sa jeunesse.»
Dans un style empreint à la fois de légèreté et de tragique, Javad Djavahery nous emmène sur les côtes de la mer Caspienne en Iran, dans les années 70, celles de l’insouciance de la jeunesse, avec des personnages attachants et complexes comme la rayonnante Niloufar et les passions qu’elle suscite. Il nous fait traverser vingt ans de l’histoire du pays, de l’orage de la révolution de 79 à la désillusion qui lui succéda dans une spirale de folie vengeresse, jusqu’aux années noires de la guerre Iran-Irak.
Dans un style empreint à la fois de légèreté et de tragique, Javad Djavahery nous emmène sur les côtes de la mer Caspienne en Iran, dans les années 70, celles de l’insouciance de la jeunesse, avec des personnages attachants et complexes comme la rayonnante Niloufar et les passions qu’elle suscite. Il nous fait traverser vingt ans de l’histoire du pays, de l’orage de la révolution de 79 à la désillusion qui lui succéda dans une spirale de folie vengeresse, jusqu’aux années noires de la guerre Iran-Irak.
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February 22, 2020Javad Djavahery is an exiled Iranian writer living in Paris. My Part of Her opens with a group of young people spending idyllic summers in the 1970s swimming in the Caspian Sea. For two months, they live in a small town on the beach finding ways to amuse and enjoy themselves. But the narrator, it turns out, is writing the book as a confession. Darkness enters the story as he describes how he manipulates his friends and his cousin Nilou for his own ends and commits an act of betrayal that haunts him. And worse things happen, as the Iranian Revolution begins and everyone has to figure out how to negotiate a world turned upside down. The story is a powerful portrait of youth with all its turmoil and confusion and what can happen when ordinary people find themselves caught up in world-transforming political change.
https://bookriot.com/2020/02/07/febru...
https://bookriot.com/2020/02/07/febru...
January 1, 2023
Amazing
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