The Persian by David McCloskey “Whatever the Mullahs say, Paradise is a fluid concept.”

How prescient it is that The Persian would arrive on my doorstep the very week that Israel bombed Iran. I watched the news in disbelief and then opened this novel to find it all the more believable.

We are reading the story of Kam Esfahani’s tortured experience, documented in prison with the blue crayons and stacks of paper the General has provided. He knows not where he is. But, he does know that crayons are less likely to be used as a weapon, even though he contemplates thrusting one through his own eye into his brain. He does know that he must not speak until he is spoken to, and that the General has not been satisfied with the drafts of the story that Kam has produced the past three years of his imprisonment. He chooses the sharpest crayon with care and begins yet again.

Kam is a dentist, living in Sweden. But, he is not Swiss. He is a Persian Jew, recruited by Arik Glitzman to work for the Mossad. Glitzman is Chief of the Mossad’s Caesarea Division, responsible for target killings, cyberattacks, and sabotage in Iran. Why would Kam agree to a proposition involving the capture of Colonel Jaffar Ghorbani? Because he longs to escape Sweden. He longs for a home in California, which he will be able to obtain with the money he earns as a spy.

Is it worth the danger? 

That is a decision each man must make for himself. What are we willing to die for?  Courage? Culture? Love? Our own integrity? Maybe Kam also longs to prove that he is something more daring than a dentist could ever be. Maybe the ties between being a spy and being emotionally involved with Roya, a Persian widow and her daughter, are irrevocably intertwined. 

I know that I read long into the night, unconscious of turning each page, as McCloskey’s writing is exquisite. You can keep John le Carre, and maybe even Mick Herron.  I deem McCloskey the better writer, for the way he is able to build tension so eloquently. For the picture he portrays of a man brave beyond measure, and two countries which may never find peace.

(Thank you to W. W. Norton for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of The Persian, which will be published on September 30, 2025.)

Grace

I saw a long, fat, black-beaded wallet at the cash register where I was paying for my bar cookies at Whole Foods this afternoon.

I looked questioningly at the man who had just paid ahead of me, but he shrugged. “It’s not mine,” he said, quietly smiling at me.

“Here,” I said to the girl taking my money. (“That will be $8.15,” she said, and when I told her I’d give her the fifteen cents she said what they all say now, the clerks who can no longer count back change, “I’ve already put it in the system.”)

“Someone left this,” I said. “Save it for when she comes back looking for it.”

Just then, the most frantic woman came rushing up.

“Don’t worry!” I said, “We have it!”

“Oh,” she said. “I’ve been searching my car and this is the last place I was. Other than the bank. I was at the bank before coming here, and there was so much money…”

“Don’t worry,” I said, putting my arms around her. “He is with us. He is with you.”

I would have said more but for the line behind us, stomping their feet as they do. “Patience,” I thought. “Just have a little patience, people.”

And then I remembered myself, driving up 75th Street on this day of 94 degree Fahrenheit temperatures, where someone was crossing without waiting for the little lit up figure to come up on the traffic light. “You asshole,” I mutter, under my breath, because I’m hot, and crabby, and I have to wait for this man who will not obey the rules.

It is so easy for one good thing to be undermined by the bad thing I’ve done just before. “Lord,” I pray, “give me the grace to be gentle with others.”

Amen.

The Passengers on the Hankyu Line by Hiro Arikawa

 

The stories of the passengers on The Passengers on The Hankyu Line, by Hiro Arikawa, are linked together like the cars of a train. They are connected, and propelled, by the people who inhabit them. 

At first, I wondered if an elderly woman with her granddaughter was the conduit through which wisdom flowed. After all, she suggested that Shoko, the resentful and bitter woman coming home from her fiancé’s wedding to a work colleague, stop at a certain town. This town, Obayashi, proved to be a delightful respite which calmed Shoko’s spirit as she gazed at the swallows and the way the townspeople cared for them.

The grandmother also suggested to Misa, after witnessing horrible verbal abuse thrown out by her boyfriend, that Misa find someone better. After the elderly woman and her granddaughter leave, Misa thinks, “Why am I dating such a jerk?” 

But, as the novel progresses, we see that she is not the only one who has a positive effect on the lives of the passengers in this train. The passengers learn more about themselves by listening to, and observing, one another.

Although each passenger’s story is unique we see them grow and change, especially as the train begins its return trip back through each station it has taken us. 

All manner of people from every walk of life - solo passengers, friends, couples, families, work colleagues - traverse the concourse at a brisk pace.

But as they cross paths, the contents of each traveler’s heart are a mystery known only to themselves.

Yet, despite the mystery, I agree with one of them who says, “Come to think of it, I owe a certain gratitude to strangers.” It is an appreciative attitude to take, especially when we find ourselves surrounded by others from whom we are quite different.

Thanks to Berkley Books for the opportunity to read and review The Passengers on the Hankyu Line by Hiro Arikawa, translated by Allison Markin Powell.

Hiro Arikawa is a renowned author from Tokyo. She is the international bestselling author of THE TRAVELLING CAT CHRONICLES and THE GOODBYE CAT. Her enduring classic title,PASSENGERS ON THE HANKYU LINE, has sold over a million copies in Japan and beyond.

 

Allison Markin Powell won the PEN Translation Prize for her translation of Hiromi Kawakami’s The Ten Loves of Nishino and is also the translator of Kawakami’s Strange Weather in Tokyo and The Nakano Thrift Shop as well as Shunmyo Masuno’s The Art of Simple Living and works by Osamu Dazai, Fuminori Nakamura, and Kanako Nishi, among others. She maintains the online database Japanese Literature in English.