This was pretty good historical fiction, except for the sex scenes. Yes, those were thrown in the middle of the book and didn't seem to have much significance other than making this the type of book students will pass around to their friends.
The young Iranian girl loses her father (and her dowry) and she and her mother have to become servants in a distant relative's household in Isfahan. The girl loves to make carpets and her uncle teaches her about the craft, even though girls don't usually learn from the master's. Because of poverty and the fear of being thrown out into the street, the young girl is coerced into agreeing to a temporary marriage (which I had never heard of until I read this novel) and she learns all there is to know about pleasing a man. This is the strange part of the book. The scenes don't have a point. Yes, she learns that she likes it and then she chooses not to renew the sigheh, even though it means devastation to her family. But she doesn't find another man by the end of the novel. She is able to support her family by making carpets with the help of her uncle and by becoming a favorite with the shah's harem. So the sex scenes have no real point. I guess she could have become a prostitute, but didn't. Maybe that's why they are in there. But anyway, take away those scenes, and this book would have been cohesive and beautiful. The Iranian storytelling is wonderful, and the descriptions of the carpets and what life was like during the Safavid dynasty was amazing.
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