Cry Of The Peacock
Peacock the Jew is nine years old and living in the Esfahan ghetto when she marries Solomon the Man. She is the descendant of a three-thousand-year-old tribe of Jews -- the oldest community in diaspora, a people largely unknown to the outside world. He is a singer in the royal court, a wealthy man known for his good looks and his charm. A decade later, she will become the first woman in her ghetto ever to have left her husband.\ Against the backdrop of two hundred years of history, CRY OF THE...
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Peacock the Jew is nine years old and living in the Esfahan ghetto when she marries Solomon the Man. She is the descendant of a three-thousand-year-old tribe of Jews—the oldest community if diaspora, a people largely unknown to the outside world. He is a singer in the royal court, a wealthy man known for his good looks and his charm. A decade later, she will become the first woman in her ghetto ever to have left her husband.Against the backdrop of two hundred years of history, Cry of the Peacock traces the story of a Jewish woman caught in the turmoil of twentieth-century Iran. Told in a series of wondrous linked tales that weave a rich and epic tapestry, it is a magical journey inside the Iranian nation and its people. For the first time in any Western language this story of Iranian Jews offers an insider's glimpse into one of the most critical parts of the world today.San Francisco ChroniclePoised between magic and history. An unusual and effective novel.
\ Los Angeles TimesSpellbinding.\ \ \ \ \ New York NewsdayMarvelous...\ \ \ San Francisco ChroniclePoised between magic and history. An unusual and effective novel.\ \ \ \ \ KLIATTIn a saga bursting at its seams with the oppressions, palace intrigues, sexual politics and ethnic caste systems that have boiled through Persia's last 200 years, the story of Peacock the Jew, a woman of independent quality, runs like a vein of quicksilver. The reader tumbles from household to household as men take wives, abuse them, sire children, orphan them, and make alliances across religious lines in the hope of earthly salvation. Nahai's cogent characterizations bring each of these complex humans to life, however briefly, before dashing hopes for that salvation before a temper, a violent ignorance, a cunning double cross, or the hardships of desert famine. Not for the faint-hearted, these trials are described in palpable detail so that the stink of poverty, the rot of criminal bloodshed and the mud that remains as the last morsel to be consumed demand visceral attention. Peacock's story is one of ultimate triumph, however, for she is shown to be capable, in her 116th year, of defying Komeini's death squad, even as she has outstripped the rampant forces of dueling cultures all her life. Nahai synthesizes the powers and intentions of both politics and faith as she pays out this tale, leaving the reader not only shaken by its violence but more insightful about the constellation of forces underlying Iran's production of a contemporary national identity. KLIATT Codes: A—Recommended for advanced students, and adults. 1991, Pocket Books/Washington Square Press, 342p, 21cm, $13.95. Ages 17 to adult. Reviewer: Francisca Goldsmith; Teen Svcs., Berkeley P.L., Berkeley, CA, March 2001 (Vol. 35 No. 2)\ \
