“The Persians” Asks Who We Might Become When We Choose to Immigrate or Not

Born in another country and a citizen of this one, I’ve always thought that there’s a distinction to be made regarding how and when and why one immigrates—or doesn’t. To leave, to stay: who do we become? What part of ourselves might we lose? Are we running from or running toward? The Persians, Sanam Mahloudji’s crackling and confident debut novel, explores such nuances through the inner lives of the Valiat family, descendants of an influential patriarch, who are dispersed in Tehran, Houston, New York, and of course, Los Angeles, with a few side visits to Aspen. 

The multigenerational women of the book—though there are male characters, the women of the historied Valiat family are the true power—drive this complex family drama, and with each chapter from the point of view of one of the characters, there’s a compelling interiority and intimacy. Mothering—and Othering—is woven throughout The Persians, glinted by secrets and silence, ultimately revealed. Such estrangements echo the larger separation from country of origin to adopted country, between mother and child, and even in an individual life: what we expected ourselves to be, and what we actually are.

Mahloudji’s talent for combining affecting individual narratives with a playful language and energy drives the momentum of the story and she imbues the book with larger cultural and historical backdrops. It is both a singular story about the Persians—or perhaps, these Persians—even as it confronts our universal desires to belong, to self-actualize, to be remembered, to connect.

I engaged in a wide-ranging epistolary interview with Sanam Mahloudji about the Valiat women, our cultural expectations, and the craft of writing.

Mandana Chaffa: Your short story “Auntie Shirin” was published in a McSweeney’s anthology in 2018—was she the start of The Persians? Or had you been working toward this novel prior to that?

Sanam Mahloudji: “Auntie Shirin,” published by McSweeney’s Quarterly—a publication I had admired for so many years—was the initial nugget for what later became The Persians, but I had not been working toward a novel at all. I was really focused on the short story form: that was my first love as a writer.

In 2018, when the story was published, I was only just beginning to think about writing with the goal of publishing. I didn’t really have an agenda with my writing, and that was critical for me. When I started writing (at least as an adult—I did enjoy it also as a child and teenager), I was a union-side labor lawyer, and I had spent my entire life before that in really regimented, directed paths. It was school, work, school, work…and I really hadn’t let myself just play. The idea of writing a novel seemed more like a career choice in a way, whereas short stories seemed like play because most people don’t read them, and that suited me just fine.  

If a story is like writing a song, a novel is the whole symphony.

Looking back, I’m grateful I had no plans of writing a novel because my focus for years was really tinkering with words, forming interesting sentences and character and dialogue…considering the rhythm of words and engaging the senses. One needs to do all these things in writing a novel, but I think some people forget about the details when trying to hammer out hundreds of pages.

“Auntie Shirin” was the first story I wrote where I thought I had something more to say than I could accomplish in around 15 pages. Before then, the way I wrote stories was centered on a single moment, or interaction or line of dialogue that would start me thinking—and I would follow that one line of inquiry until its end. Perhaps I did that to protect myself—maybe something unconscious in me knew I’d eventually want to write a whole book but at the time it was important to write in a more low-stakes way, get some stories under my belt…to just play.

What I soon learned is that writing a novel is an incredible joy and something I found even more satisfying artistically than short story writing—it requires not only all the focus on language and sentences, but also inventing and retaining a lot in your head at once. Having to hold a whole world in my mind and call myself to express parts of that world when needed for a scene even as that world is also changing and shifting because of what is showing up on the page—I think that is maybe the biggest difference between the two experiences. If a story is like writing a song, a novel is the whole symphony. 

MC: Shirin’s comment that “We didn’t come here for a better life. We left a better life” encapsulates the experience of many who left Iran after 1979, but the book also explores a range of post-Revolution experiences. Those who were able to leave. Those who couldn’t. More personally, your own emigration from Iran occurred in the same time period—would you talk about your own experiences in diaspora and how that has informed the novel in complement or contrast?

SM: I think about those lines a lot. Their meaning has changed for me during these years of writing The Persians. At first, I thought Shirin was a bit in denial saying these words because what she actually left didn’t exist anymore—the pre-revolutionary Iran. And so what she left was actually Islamic Republic Iran, and of course that couldn’t have been a better life. Could it? But with time, I have questioned that interpretation. I think there is a deep loss when you leave your country, your history and culture, behind in the way Shirin and much of her family did…and even if on the surface maybe she has a freer life in Houston than she would have in Tehran, I do wonder what Shirin would have been like if she had stayed. I think she might be a happier person, and probably less focused on outer success and riches. Maybe she really would have had a better life if she had just stayed and dealt with life within the Islamic Republic—at least she still would have been home.

These are questions I ask myself—and are part of what inspired me to write these characters. Some who stayed, some who left. Who would I be if my parents never left? There is a part of me that grieves that person that could have been. Who would she be? My primary language would be different—I speak Persian, but my fluency is mainly to speak in the home with family. What would I be like if I thought in Persian? If my references to culture and music, to land, trees, animals are the ones you’d find in Iran, not the United States or London where I now live? Of course, everyone can listen to or watch anything these days with the right VPN, but even back in the 80s and 90s, the Western pop culture would have been filtered through layers of an Iran and Iranian-ness I couldn’t fully know. It’s kind of like the concept of terroir for wine—I can’t inject myself with that no matter how much I engage with Iranian culture. Although I am Iranian, in many ways I have been formed by the United States.

The staying versus going is also why I think some of the characters mirror each other, or why I needed to have so many different points of view. I feel like the Iranian experience is so fractured—we are never in one place, or time. Because I grew up with my family scattered across different countries, and because of this real palpable sense of before and after the Revolution, I had to imagine the stories of people who might have been my relatives into existence in order to construct a fuller image of who I am.

There is a deep loss when you leave your country, your history and culture, behind.

In a sense, that is Bita’s role in the book. She is a person who needs to construct a whole history of her family in order to figure out who she is.

MC: Did you always intend to do character-driven chapters when planning this book? It’s especially effective as these are individuals—perhaps even an entire culture—where people don’t easily share their deepest feelings, so this structure invites the reader to become a confidant.

SM: Yes, although I wouldn’t say that I was really planning the book in the early stages. I had written “Auntie Shirin” and there were these characters I couldn’t get out of my head. Shirin, Bita, Elizabeth, Seema. Niaz is the only one who doesn’t appear in the short story. I just wanted to know everything about these characters. Why they acted the way they did, what their problems were—I had some initial ideas, but from the very beginning I felt like I had a lot to explore and find out. 

Perhaps because I had been writing short stories, the idea to write a chapter from a different character’s perspective felt natural to me—almost like separate short stories. But I also knew I didn’t want to write linked short stories. That can be a great form, but I really felt like there was an overall arc to this story that wanted to be told.

You are right—I do think that Iranians tend to be quite secretive as a people. They don’t usually share their real feelings. And I think even with younger generations, the force of history and habit is strong. I actively fight against that tendency in myself. There is such a fear I think of not appearing a certain way—as some kind of ideal version of oneself.

I wanted these characters to be able to tell the truth. And I knew it might not naturally happen in their interactions with one another, but if it could, it would be a really big deal.

MC: “Women have the fire in my family. But they are useless without power.” Yet, I’d suggest that in the Valiat family, in its many hues and flavors, it is the women who have the power. Of imagination, of resolution, of reinvention. Even with their wealth and significant freedoms, the men seem to have challenges rebounding into new circumstances, other than Ali, who was able to shift his station in life at a time and in a way that was decidedly revolutionary.

SM: Shirin says this during a conversation with her niece—I think she’s standing with Bita in her New York City kitchenette burning hair off her arms. Shirin thinks she is doing this big favor for Bita, making her look more presentable. And while she works, Shirin is running through, probably for the millionth time, the family history…this story that she feels she needs to keep repeating like some kind of prayer or mantra, as if to keep it alive although it’s long gone—but in a way they keep it alive by this telling and retelling. 

You are correct that in the book, the women are more resourceful. Shirin has reinvented herself as an event planner in Houston. Niaz in her young thirty-odd years has had so many different pursuits—from the boldness of exploring her sexuality as a teenager in the early days of the Islamic Republic, to getting involved with her Blue Room parties, to starting her salons. Bita with her questioning of where she is going with her life and her slow budding attraction to her friend Patty. I do think all these women are evolving and challenging norms, while most of the men don’t seem so nimble.

This was, of course, intentional. Iran was and is a patriarchal society, and yet my whole life I have seen women who respond to whatever is thrown at them in ways that are wholly startling and, you’re right, powerful. Many of the men I have seen started out in positions of power vis-a-vis women but have seemed to flounder, or else are just going through the motions of the life that is expected of them. They work “in business.” They have “mistresses” because that is a way for them to feel powerful. But really, [maybe] they wanted to be an artist, something they’d never dare. They don’t have the guts. Or maybe they don’t really want to be an artist. I feel sad for these men, actually. They probably feel enormous pressure.

All these women are evolving and challenging norms, while most of the men don’t seem so nimble.

I think Shirin is also expressing her deep frustrations at this lack of equality in society. She does think that her mother and sister have been useless and powerless to some extent. And she thinks Niaz is wasting her life, and Bita too, to a degree. Maybe it’s that she really expects a lot from them. She would have wanted more for herself—there is a part of her who certainly doesn’t respect what she does for a living, even as she boasts about it. She knows she is capable of more.

From what I have seen, the Revolution did more damage to the psyche of the men in my family because they went from power to no power. The women already had no power, so they could only go up.

MC: Seema’s perspective arrives unexpectedly; a reminder that others’ voices are always missing in the narrative we’ve created for ourselves. Were you always planning to include her in the book directly, not just in the memories of others? 

SM: Yes, I knew that she was going to have her own thread in the book, and that although we learn in the first chapter that she died a year before the action of the novel begins, I knew I had to find a way to bring her back.

She is Shirin’s sister, and yet she is so different from Shirin. It was really important to me to have the reader get to know characters who grew up in the same household but who ended up really different—that was part of the fun of writing the book. To see how differently people can respond to the same circumstances—the way siblings can be so unique is fascinating to me, especially when they are of the same gender. But also, each member of a family plays a role, or fits into a certain role in order to make a larger whole. Like in a band. Seema to me is like the conscience of the family. The one underneath it all. She’s the heartbeat. I have a lot of sympathy for her. 

In earlier drafts of the book, she had died ten years earlier; in the editing process, it became clear that her death needed to be much more recent and present. That the family needed to be in an earlier part of their journey of grieving her, that her death was still new. 

MC: Another compelling theme is how lives and personalities are formed in the absence of others, not just their presence—Niaz without Shirin, but with Elizabeth; Bita and Shirin without Seema, and more generally, Iranians without Iran. How much does absence, whether it’s people or place, play a role in your creative pursuits?

SM: I started writing fiction around the same time that my father died very unexpectedly. So, for a long time, the absence of my father ran alongside this new presence in my life of writing, of creative work. He was a very serious reader of literature, and in a way maybe I was trying to make up for that absence by pursuing a life in writing.

I don’t think I could have written this book if I had told my family about it—so I wrote it in secret. I only told my mother I’d written a book called The Persians after it sold to publishers. I wouldn’t have felt the freedom to form it in the way I imagined if she knew I was working on it. I probably would have been discouraged, or wouldn’t have even really started.

I also wonder if living in London opens up another absence for me—the absence of the United States—that has been helpful for my creative life. 

MC: One of Elizabeth’s coping mechanisms is that one must “Accept and Move On. A.M.O…Forget the past. Focus only on the future.” It’s not an altogether bad approach, to be honest, though I’m even more taken with Niaz’s conclusions: “Persians left but keep looking for Tehran. Isn’t it better to just let go?” She—and Bita, to a large extent—the younger generation as a whole, understand more deeply total forgetfulness is both fruitless and can exact a cost on one’s soul, and forward momentum.

SM: The younger generation, Bita and Niaz, are certainly more in touch with their emotions, and think about feelings in a more modern way. And you are correct that A.M.O. is a coping mechanism. Elizabeth is probably lying to herself—she hasn’t forgotten anything! And by the end of that scene she does away with A.M.O., or at least she says she does. But you are right—I don’t think total forgetfulness is best for one’s soul and future. Acceptance is important—but again, I don’t know if Elizabeth was really accepting anything. Her coping mechanism feels a bit surface level. A label, but not a real truth. A way to trick herself.

Elizabeth doesn’t have the “tools” of modern psychology (she says something to this effect) but has figured out a way to live with herself. But I do think that her final act—which we don’t see, which happens after the book ends– will see her really coming into her own in a new way—or at least I like to imagine that for her. And even before that, in her last few scenes I do think that she has some real insights and develops some true acceptance.

Letting go does sound nice though, doesn’t it? I wish I were better at that. That is one of the goals of certain teachings, like Buddhism…but it’s so hard to do.

MC: You began the book with Bita’s impressions—Bita who is the direct connection to Seema—and gave the last words to Elizabeth. Would you talk about that decision? Did you always mean to bookend the novel in such a way?

SM: I had always meant to start with Bita as she feels the closest to me. She was my entry to this family. But for a long time Niaz had the last word. And I actually killed Elizabeth off! Not in a full scene, but in a short flash forward…but while editing the book, I came to see that Elizabeth was not finished. 

Then it really made sense to me to end with Elizabeth. She is the source for all these other characters—she is the oldest living Valiat. The Persians wouldn’t have been who they were without her. She deserved the last word.

MC: The book is titled The Persians, which hints at another kind of veiling, doesn’t it? Immediately after the Revolution, at least in my own limited circle, people were more likely to say they were Persian, rather than Iranian, because of the attendant reactions. Is this another echo of how the family shaded the truth about the real background of their inscrutable “Great Warrior” patriarch, from whose callous actions there arose great wealth and status, and perhaps a little bit of a curse?

SM: I didn’t think of it that way, but I like that interpretation, and I think it makes a lot of sense in the context of the book—the Great Warrior’s story and the family’s various shadings of truth. I wanted the title to be audacious and bold—so much so that maybe I’m also making some kind of joke or commentary. I am thinking of big books written by Westerners with titles like “The XX” or “The XX People” where they are supposedly explaining a whole people to the West. I wanted to do that myself. And since I am now sort of a Westerner it felt appropriate. It felt like a very Western title from a Western Iranian. 

I really wanted that title precisely because it felt a little ridiculous for me to claim it. I was only a baby when I left Iran, but in a sense, I wanted to show the reader (and myself) that this culture, this identity, is not something one can just shed by spending a few measly years in the United States. I have inside me a whole history and culture, even if I have to invent or create parts of it. It still exists in my head and in my soul. This relates to what I mentioned earlier—though in large part I was formed in the U.S., maybe there’s such a thing as an Iranian soul. 

And I couldn’t have called them The Iranians. While I usually call myself Iranian, or Iranian-American, I think that calling themselves The Persians just gives that air of grandiosity. This status, imagined or real. Reza Shah officially changed the name of the country from Persia to Iran in 1935 in part to distance itself from its colonial legacy (it was never a colony exactly but Britain and Russia toyed with Iran for many, many years, had their “spheres of influence;” and later the U.S. too), and 1935 is not that long ago! I thought The Persians better points to the quasi-colonial history that I’m interested in. And even the begrudging longing for Western acceptance I’ve seen.  

MC: Out of all these vivid characters, I have a particular affection for Niaz, who stayed with her grandmother in Iran, rather than leave with her parents—a casualty of one of the family secrets that drives, and drives apart, the family. Yet, she’s no victim; her story, her agency, is no less than those who left for a safer life. She has often untenable situations as a result of being a woman in Iran, but in many ways, she’s one of the most resourceful members of the family, and creates beauty and community, regardless of her circumstances, or perhaps, because of them.

SM: I love Niaz, too. When I imagine who I would have been if my family didn’t leave Iran, she’s kind of person I would want myself to have been. She is spunky, she is a real rebel—she sees through the bullshit. She gets swept up in her desires, and fantasies, but she takes real risks, and I think in many ways she has had the most interesting life. 

The post “The Persians” Asks Who We Might Become When We Choose to Immigrate or Not appeared first on Electric Literature.