Pomegranate Soup
by Marsha Mehran
Random House, $187
Women writers of Persian origin have come into prominence of late. Witness Marjane Satrapi, Azar Nafisi and Firoozeh Dumas. Marsha Mehran with her debut novel, Pomegranate Soup, a tale of a Persian cafe run by three sisters in a small Irish town, joins the rank of delightful storytellers. She escaped the upheaval of the Iranian revolution with her family and grew up in Argentina, where her parents ran a Middle Eastern cafe. Debut fiction usually draws inspiration from life and Pomegranate Soup is infused with elements from Mehran's times.
Babylon Cafe is run by sisters Marjan, Bahar and Layla, who fled Iran to escape the revolution. In Ireland, the land of 'crazed sheep and dizzying roads', they hope to find a home.
The exotic aromas of saffron, cardamom and cinnamon waft down the Main Mall of Ballinacroagh and set many a local nose tingling and tongue wagging. Dervla Quigley, a crabby gossip who roosts on her bedroom window opposite the cafe, regards the smells as a 'nasty reek of foreignness' and decides to warn parishioners against the sinful food. Thomas McGuire, the village's Donald Trump, had set his mind on buying the shop next door and building a disco to add to his growing empire of pubs, inns and spirit shops. He feels his plans are threatened by the cafe.