Moon Brow

Before shrapnel severed his left arm during the Iran-Iraq war and he was sent to a mental hospital for shell-shocked soldiers, Amir Khan lived the life of a wealthy playboy. Five years later, his mother and sister Reyhaneh find him and bring him home to Tehran. With his memories of his previous life decimated, Amir is tormented by the recurring vision of a mysterious woman he believes is his fiancee. He never sees her face: there is a shining crescent moon on her forehead, so he names her Moon Brow.

Amir implores Reyhaneh to help him find her. Full of love and exasperation, she agrees, if only to heal her ruptured family, reminding Amir that while he'd been consumed with girls and parties, she'd been a "headscarf-shrouded prisoner" in her powerful father's house. Now Amir is the one who cannot escape the garden walls: his father's guards hail him as a living martyr to the cause of Imam Khomeini and the Revolution, yet treat him as a dangerous madman. Amir decides there's only one solution to his dilemma: escape, return to the battlefield, and find his severed arm--along with its engagement ring.

All the while, twin scribes--the angel of virtue and the angel of sin--sit on our hero's shoulders and narrate the story in enthrallingly distinctive prose. Wildly inventive and radically empathetic, steeped in Persian folklore and contemporary Middle East history, Moon Brow is the great Iranian novelist Shahriar Mandanipour's unforgettable epic of love, war, morality, faith, and family.

Before he enlisted as a soldier in the Iran-Iraq war and disappeared, Amir Yamini was a carefree playboy whose only concerns were seducing women and riling his religious family. Five years later, his mother and sister Reyhaneh find him in a mental hospital for shell-shocked soldiers, his left arm and most of his memory lost. Amir is haunted by the vision of a mysterious woman whose face he cannot see--the crescent moon on her forehead shines too brightly. He names her Moon Brow.

Back home in Tehran, the prodigal son is both hailed as a living martyr to the cause of Ayatollah Khomeini's Revolution and confined as a dangerous madman. His sense of humor, if not his sanity, intact, Amir cajoles Reyhaneh into helping him escape the garden walls to search for Moon Brow. Piecing together the puzzle of his past, Amir decides there's only one solution: he must return to the battlefield and find the remains of his severed arm--and discover its secret.

All the while, twin scribes--the angel of virtue and the angel of sin--sit on our hero's shoulders and narrate the story in enthrallingly distinctive prose. Wildly inventive and radically empathetic, steeped in Persian folklore and contemporary Middle East history, Moon Brow is the great Iranian novelist Shahriar Mandanipour's unforgettable epic of love, war, morality, faith, and family.