THE PERSIANS

The word of mouth breakout STYLIST As funny as it is moving GUARDIAN I enjoyed it enormously MARIAN KEYES Mesmerising MONICA ALI Glorious SARAH WINMAN Funny and profound TASH AW A riotously funny and moving debut novel following five women from three generations of a once illustrious Iranian family as their lives are turned upside down Meet the women of the Valiat family In Iran they were somebodies In America they re nobodies First there is Elizabeth the regal matriarch with the famously large nose who remained in Tehran despite the revolution She is kept company by Niaz her young Islamic law breaking granddaughter In America Elizabeth s two daughters have built new lives for themselves There s Shirin a flamboyantly high flying event planner in Houston who considers herself the family s future and Seema a dreamy idealist turned bored housewife languishing in Los Angeles And then there s the other granddaughter Bita a disillusioned law student in New York trying to find deeper meaning by giving away her worldly belongings When an annual vacation in Aspen goes wildly awry and Shirin ends up being bailed out of jail by Bita the family s brittle upper class veneer is cracked wide open and gossip about them spreads like wildfire Soon Shir