The Girl from the Garden
Parnaz Foroutan
Harper Collins
Myth intertwines with memory in Parnaz Foroutan’s stirring debut novel, which examines the mysteries that persist even in the most time-honoured family lore. The Girl from the Garden revolves around the memories of elderly Mahboubeh Malacouti, who vividly dreams of her family’s life in a Jewish enclave in early 20th century Iran while slowly losing touch with reality in a Los Angeles that ‘erases all memory of the past’. Foroutan’s unreliable narrators and vertiginous nested stories make it difficult to distinguish imagination from memory, and fact from the muttered recollections of iron-hearted matriarch Rakhel, Mahboubeh’s aunt. Childless in a time when a woman’s primary function was to bear sons, Rakhel’s longing and despair harden into a fierce determination, which steers the family to unsuspected and often frightening ends.
Regarding the death of Mahboubeh’s mother, Rakhel explains simply that she ‘died from the complications of womanhood’: these complications form the emotional core of the story. Accordingly, most of it is enclosed in the limited physical space of these women’s lives. However, this isn’t a tale of confinement; nor does the narrative feel constrained. Foroutan succeeds in bringing these small domestic spaces to brilliant light, complete with blessings, djinns, and even plagues. More than these supernatural interventions, though, it is Foroutan’s sensuous evocation of the quieter, more quotidian ‘complications’ that bring the book to life.
Words: Mònica Tomàs
