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Summary: The Boston Globe calls this book "exotic, beautiful, rich"
Review: On Sunday, march 14, the Boston Globe said this of Gina Nahai's second novel: "Gina Nahai weaves a dense, tighly-knotted Persian carpet of what coule be 1001 tales of the Iranian nights...The reader who sticks with the novel is rewarded with something exotic, beautiful, and rich; a testament to the power and bautiful of Gina Nahai's writing and the world she so brilliantly illuminates...We jump on the magic carpet, soar above the Avenue of Faith, satisfied to let this gifted storyteller weave her spell."
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Summary: Toronto Star Review
Review: On Sunday, May 30, the Toronto Star said: "Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith is lyrical, beautiful...a languid, steamy read."
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Summary: spellbinding, compelling, fascinating
Review: Publisher's weekly, Jan 4, 1999:"Iranian author Nahai's (Cry of the Peacock)richly embroidered, mythopoetic new novel is a tale worthy of Scheherezade. Miriam the Moon weaves for her niece Lili the spellbinding story of how Lili's mother, Roxanna the Angel, in the grip of a destiny she could not control, abandoned her five-year-old daughter without explanation and vanished into the Iranian night. She remained missing for the next 13 years...Roxanna's tale is marvellously compelling."
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Summary: This is a wonderful book
Review: Set mostly in Iran, it is a wonderful and magical fable about the intergenerational legacies passed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter and beyond and leaves the reader pondering the age-old question of the relationship between destiny and free will. I'm not usually a fan of magical realism; but this book is one of the best in its genre.
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Summary: entertainment, yes. literature? hmmm...
Review: several years ago, nahai's first book, cry of the peacock, confirmed me somewhat in my decision to take up middle east studies as my major. subsequenly i feel more qualified than before to voice some criticism. even though the magical qualities of the places and the people she takes the reader to are bedazzling and certainly worth while, her portrayal of muslim persians is quite one-dimensional and negative. while her antagonism is actually very understandable (especially since i am a refugee myself), it really substantially diminishes the quality of her work. however, my chief criticism is aimed towards her new book. whereas its first half was beautiful (albeit somewhat repetitive to the readers of cry of the peacock), the second part (covering turkey and the us) was very conventional, rather hastily written and not lyrical at all. similarly to isabel allende, the endeavour to include the american experience was shallow and full of cliches. in the end, the book was truly manichean- with iran all darkness and america all light. excuse me if i am offending anybody, but to me this book is not the sparkling literature i had hoped to find, but simply a mass market novel, slightly better than the rest.
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Summary: Moonlight on the ave. of faith
Review: The book , although a fiction, contains a lot of historical facts which makes it hard for a non Iranian Jew to distinguish between facts and fiction parts of the book. For example most political events in Iran and general history of Jews described in this book is close to reality but the Jewish characters specially the women are not depicted justly. In the traditional and fanatic society of Iran specially small Jewish community, having an affair with a father in law is unheard of. It is absolutely preposterous to say that an Iranian mother would try to murder her own daughter. Or heed not the suicide of her daughter. Majority of the Jewish mothers in Iran would go through all kinds of hardship and sacrifices to see their children grow up good and get proper education . I personally have witnessed many Iranian mothers who were living in poverty but allocated most of their meager budget to their children. They went hungry for days but made sure their children were being taken care of. The Persians, specially Jews are depicted in this book as being ruthless, uneducated, ugly and materialistic. Where as although in Iran the population of Persian Jews were less than 2 per 1000 a noticeable percentage of the highly educated intellectuals were Jews who along with other Iranian counterparts were using their education to serve in places like universities, hospitals, consulting firms Etc. Later on majority of the same people immigrated to southern California and became successful in all sectors as medicine, engineering, research ,business etc. Every thing is possible, but existence of such characters in this book is extremely remote. However their fictional lives in the book are intertwined with the Contemporary historical facts of Iran which makes them look real specially to a westerner whose cultural information of Iran and Iranian Jews are limited . Although some of tradition and many historical events in this book are well described but it has given an unrealistic, distorted image to Iranian Jews and lacks discussion of the real issues of Iranian and Iranian Jews both in Iran and in Los Angeles.
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Summary: A tale of wondrous light that is worthy of Scheherazade!
Review: The first voice heard in this epic novel, is that of Lili, eighteen and haunted by her motherless past. Her mother, Roxanna the Angel, was "once a young woman with watercolor eyes and translucent skin...she could stop the world with her laughter.." and most importantly, "had been so light and delicate, so undisturbed by the rules of gravity and the drudgery of human existence, she had grown wings, one night....and flown into the star-studded night of Iran that claimed her." Lili was five when she saw her mother grow wings and disappear from her life only to return when Lili is eighteen. Nahai's spellbinding imagery and vocabulary capture readers into the world of Iran and into the life of Roxanna the Angel who was destined to run, before she was even conceived. We readers enter the world of characters such as Shusha the Beautiful, Miriam the Moon, Alexandra the Cat, and Mercedez the Movie Star...where sunflowers can light up a person's existence and the sorrows of destiny and history will hold you captive forever. I highly recommend this to everyone who likes GREAT books!
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Summary: I recommend this book
Review: This book was AMAZING! I'd never read any of her books before, but after reading Moonlight on the Ave. of Faith, Gina Nahai has become my favorite author. She writes beautifully descriptive sentences that just seem to captivate. I'd definately recommend this book to anyone looking for a book to curl up in a hammock with!
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Summary: Moonlight On Your Day
Review: This is an amazing book. While giving you insight into the faith and structure of a rarely discussed segment of the world, the author makes the characters compelling enough that you learn while not being able to put the book down. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story, especially good on a rainy day or to read at night before going to bed.
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Summary: A Magical Story
Review: This is one of my favourite novels. Gina Nahai has often been compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and in many ways this comparison is appropriate, but Nahai's 'magic realism' -- her metaphors, symbols and moods -- are gentler and less deliberately strange than those of Marquez. The ability to fly, dreams which spill into the world, the reversal of night and day -- all these (and other) wonders seem natural to the background of the story, especially in the early sections, which are set in the Tehran Ghetto. I suppose that writers like Marquez and Nahai, if they really have anything in common, share the tendency to write not about how the world really is, but about how it sometimes feels, if such a distinction can be made. The Tehran of Nahai's novel has all the magic of Eastern Fable, but it is not a whimiscal place. There is dust and disappointment as well as wonders. There is a painful voyage of discovery across Turkey and beyond. Nahai is perfect at telling a complex and human tale in glittering prose. She is a beautiful woman and a beautiful writer.
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