A Bitter Veil by Libby Fischer Hellmann Narrated by, Diane
Piron Gelman
PUBLISHER : Libby Fischer Hellmann
LENGTH: 9 hrs and 29 mins
A Fascinating look at a time of turmoil in Iran with the
fall of the Shah & the rise of the Ayatollah. This book felt very well
researched and wasn’t a slam on an entire country or religion. We meet a young
couple in love in America, Nouri and
Anna they are young and in love Nouri is Iranian but this makes no difference
to Anna in fact she is looking forward to the day they make their home in Iran.
However Iran is in the beginning stages of upheaval and when the Shah falls
everything in Nouri & Anna’s life changes too and definitely not for the
better.
I found this story fascinating in how fast people’s
allegiances and loyalty and personalities changed with the revolution and how many
different reasons for the changes. Anne married a sweet man in Nouri who was
involved in human rights activism while he was studying in the US and even
after they had gotten to Iran he seemed to still hold the same beliefs until
after the fall of the Shah and Nouri is arrested he comes back a very different
man and Anna’s whole life changes.
I don’t want to give too much away about what happens
between Nouri and Anna but let’s say he becomes a different man than she
married. The unrest in Iran is fascinating the way the people flip-flopped on
what It was they wanted from their country it makes me wonder how different the
middle east and Iran in particular would be now if the ones that wanted to
embrace the modern and give the rights to everyone had won this particular
battle.
The narration by Diane Piron Gelman was very well done her
accents weren’t over done and as far as I could tell she did a good job at
speaking Farsi and French when called for. I was impressed with her narration
as a whole and would listen to her again.
In the author’s afterword she talks about interviewing many Iranian
Americans for this story and I felt like this rang true to what I know of this
time period. One thing the author said in the afterword is she is a crime
writer and needed a crime but I kind of felt like the crimes were on the people
of Iran although the crime did add the ending and fit well in the story.
If you are at all interesting in this time period or setting
or just a fan of historical fiction I would highly recommend this book.
4 Stars
I received this book from the author & the Audiobookjukebox
for a fair and honest review
No comments:
Post a Comment