NO BORDERS FOR TRUTH

A young CIA operative engages in a love affair with an Iranian nurse during the turbulent early 1980s in Brown’s novel.

In the Shah’s Iran, Shideh Ghasemi lives in a safe world with a loving family. Her mother keeps a framed photo of Empress Farah, the queen; “it was a tacit understanding that we were modern, and now with the king and queen’s reforms in place, the world was ours.” Shideh’s mother is a devout Muslim, but her father is not religious—even so, they are a good match, but things become more complicated at the start of the Iranian revolution. In the United States, Richard Holmes attends high school in New Jersey, where he is a standout track star. He scores a scholarship to Villanova and seems well on his way to a bright future. In Iran, the situation grows more unstable, and Shideh suffers a horrifying family tragedy. Wracked with grief, she leaves Iran to enter a nursing program at Georgetown University. America is a foreign and sometimes-baffling place, but she finds the people to be kinder than she expected. She meets Richard when he drops his younger sister off at Georgetown, and the two begin a relationship. Richard has an uncle at the FBI who enlists him to help on a sting, but he settles on a job in banking and later pursues a career at the CIA; Shideh returns to Iran at a dangerous moment out of concern for her family and her country. Brown’s narrative offers remarkable insights into the many troubling occurrences in Iran in the 1970s and 1980s and highlights troubling connections to the American government. Shideh’s personal story effectively serves as both a history lesson and a plea for fairness while emphasizing the importance of family. Richard’s path to the CIA is also intriguing. However, the leads’ romance is stunted due to Shideh’s reticence, and the story doesn’t give them much room to grow as a couple.

A rich, layered novel about political upheaval, family tragedy, and the hope for reconciliation and healing.