The Saffron Kitchen

When I humiliated my father, he humiliated me. It made me strong, Maryam tells her daughter in Crowther's first novel. The author and her daughter, who narrates half of this work, share an Iranian-British heritage. Together author and narrators lead listeners into a world difficult for a child to understand. Using dual narrators works well. Mehr Mansuri adopts a deep, flat tone for Maryam, who accepts whatever must happen next. In Ariana Fraval's voice we hear the excitement, fear, and confusion of a young person. This is a woman's story of living in a man's world--of breasts bound to keep a child young, of living with second and third wives, of pregnancy, and of violation. These might be strange customs from half-a-world away, but the voices are strangely familiar. R.R. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Starred review from October 2, 2006
Maryam is the willful daughter of an Iranian general who backed the Shah of Iran during the (U.S.-backed) 1953 coup that toppled Iran's prime minister, Mossadegh. In the midst of the turmoil, and with the threat of an arranged marriage hanging over her, Maryam is sheltered one night by her father's trusted assistant, Ali, a young man near her age—16—for whom she feels a shy attraction. And though still a virgin the next morning, their feelings for each other are clear. Maryam is sent away by her aloof father ("she is no daughter of mine"), a painful memory that, decades later, shatters her settled marriage to an understanding if pained British husband, and bewilders and angers her own daughter. A 40-year separation from Ali and a tender reunion in a remote village are just a few turns of the intense plot, full of tragic coilings and romantic passion, that make this a wonderfully intricate debut novel. Crowther, daughter of a British father and an Iranian mother, powerfully depicts Maryam's wrenching romantic and nationalistic longings, exploring the potency of heritage and the pain of exile.

Starred review from February 26, 2007
Crowther's debut novel paints a vivid double portrait of a spirited mother-daughter pair, first- and second-generation immigrants to England from Iran whose relationship grows turbulent when shadows from the mother's past begin to overwhelm her. This beautifully produced reading starts with the bright voice of Ariana Fraval as Sara, the daughter, but it is soon overtaken by the darker, melodically accented tones of Mehr Mansuri as Maryam, Sara's mother. Maryam returns to the tiny village where she grew up to come to terms with her past, especially with the ghost of her father and with her first love, Ali, who has been waiting for her return. As Maryam journeys through Iran and back into her memories, and then induces Sara to come too, Mansuri's voice takes on myriad emotional shades, from wonder and delight to sharp regret and painful uncertainty. Intervals of Persian-inflected music helps set an exotic yet contemplative mood. Fraval and Mansuri's authentic pronunciation of the occasional foreign words allows listeners to be swept up by Crowther's lovely, haunting story even more easily than when reading it for themselves. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover. (Reviews, Oct. 2).