REMEMBERING HOPE

An Iranian woman struggles with the news that her husband is dying of cancer in this novel.

Bahar isn’t husband hunting when she meets Omid, the cousin of her best friend, Shirin; she is 25 years old and devoted to her career as a lawyer in Iran. But Bahar finds Omid, a doctor living in San Diego, California, dazzling, an observation communicated in clichés: “Omid was leagues above any other man I had met. He could easily have been on the cover of GQ magazine.” Later, she fawningly refers to him as her “Prince Charming.” Their courtship is a happy blur—they get engaged only two weeks after they first meet. Twenty years later, they have two sons, Koosha and Kayvon, and are still deeply in love, conjoined by an “invincible bond.” Unfortunately, Omid is diagnosed with glioblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer that proves resistant to treatment, including surgery. Bahar has no choice but to confront the likelihood of his death and the need to tell the kids, from whom she has hidden the truth of Omid’s condition. She then faces a medical crisis of her own. Rezai’s emotional tale is an affecting, if excessively sentimental, one—she tends to gravitate toward cloying melodrama. In addition, her prose is earnestly anodyne, brimming with shopworn tropes and overly familiar formulas. Readers will not find anything new here—neither the plot nor the prose promises even a hint of originality. Nonetheless, this is still an intelligently told tale about the ways in which dreamlike happiness, even the kind that has endured for decades, is always ultimately fragile. Furthermore, Bahar is a well-drawn character—vulnerable and dependent on Omid but with an impressively vast storehouse of emotional reserves at the ready should catastrophe strike.

A sweet tale of love and crisis with a memorable protagonist.