Persians

The Valiat family were somebodies in Iran and are nobodies in America. The Persians follows five women of this once-distinguished Iranian family as they deal with upheavals both personal and political.

Elizabeth is the regal matriarch, known for her famously large nose, who stayed in Tehran through the revolution. She lives alone, though her granddaughter Niaz sometimes visits. Niaz breaks Islamic law and parties with a sense of purpose, and somehow gets by. Elizabeth's daughters ended up in the United States. Shirin is a charismatic, flamboyant event planner in Houston who sees herself as the family's future. Seema is a dreamy idealist turned housewife, stuck in the scrubby hills of Los Angeles. The other granddaughter, Bita, is a disillusioned law student in New York who is quietly giving away her belongings in search of deeper meaning.

The family's polished surface cracks when their annual Aspen vacation goes badly wrong and Shirin lands in jail. She sets out to return the family name to its former glory, but that raises a hard question about a country where the Valiats never really mattered. Can they carry their old inheritance into a new future?

The novel is Sanam Mahloudji's debut. It moves between satire and philosophy and runs from 1940s Iran to a fractured 2000s. Its subjects include love, family, money, art, and finding yourself and each other when your homeland is lost. It is darkly funny and gives the American family saga a new shape.