The gowkaran tree in the middle of our kitchen

In this lush if chaotic novel from Azar (The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree), a Zoroastrian family's peace is shattered by the Iranian Revolution. The novel focuses on how war and cultural erasure interfere in the lives of narrator Shokoofeh and her family. When she's 15, shortly before the revolution, a large tree mysteriously sprouts in their kitchen and she falls in love with a family friend named Behnam. Years later, Behnam, who has been living in the U.S., returns to Iran and goes missing, as does Sholoofeh's brother who went mad after fighting in Iraq. Meanwhile, the mysterious tree remains in their house, and it comes to serve as a symbol of the family's unity and its Zoroastrian roots ("The tree in the middle of the kitchen had not moved an inch. It was the same as it had always been. Laden with fruit. Leafy. Thriving. Home to a thousand birds"). In this vein, Azar weaves in Zoroastrian folklore such as Shokoofeh's father's reenactment of the story of Zahhak, a tyrannical mythical emperor. Though the allusions can be transfixing, they sometimes make the story feel cluttered and confusing, and many among the large cast of characters are left underdeveloped. There's plenty of beauty on offer here, but readers will have trouble going the distance. (June)

Azar explores the roots of the Iranian revolution and its aftermath through the spiritual journey of one young woman. Given that Azar left Iran after several arrests and now lives in Australia, and that her translator is anonymous "for security reasons," it's no surprise that her romantic and spiritual fabulism is steeped in resistance to the country's oppressive government. The influence of both García Márquez and Pasternak whispers throughout. Narrator Shokoofeh begins her decades-long story in 1976, when she's 15, living in the family mansion and obsessed with the concept of love. Her father is a professor at the University of Tehran and the family is Zoroastrian, members of a religious minority in Iran. Many of the supernatural events in the story relate to Zoroastrian mythology: The boundary between the living and dead, who appear in multitudes, is permeable; Shokoof is loaned a magical Ball of Light; the Lord of Worlds has a love affair with Eblis, a mysterious woman of mythic power who appears in different guises in other scenes. More straightforward is Azar's retelling of the 1979 Revolution, which was closely followed by the Iran-Iraq War. The author makes a strong case against the misgovernance, brutal oppression, and general chaos of the regime, focusing on fictional characters but also naming real names. The spine of the novel is Shokoof's spiritual and physical journey as she searches for her missing brother on the front lines of battle and navigates a romantic love triangle with two cousins. One is her "restless lover" Behnam, an idealistic, communist-leaning intellectual to whom she's committed her life, the other Bahnam, a ruthless Revolutionary Guard whose unrequited love for Shokoof never dissipates. Although readers may sometimes get lost, especially when the author's imagination spirals in multiple directions at once, they can expect impassioned, gorgeous writing. A wildly ambitious novel about Iran's past, present, and future filled with longing and fury. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.