The Stationery Shop

by Marjan Kamali Narrated by Mozhan Marnò

Overview

From the award-nominated author of Together Tea and The Lion Women of Tehran, a poignant, "powerful" (The Wall Street Journal) and "affecting novel about first love" (Real Simple) that explores loss, reconciliation, and the quirks of fate.

Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amid the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri's neighborhood stationery shop, stocked with books and pens and bottles of jewel-colored ink.

Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer-handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi's poetry-and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran.

A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts-a result of the coup d'etat that forever changes their country's future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on-to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England-until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?

Editorial Reviews

JUNE 2019 - AudioFile

Mozhan Marnò gives an extraordinary narration of this audiobook, set mainly in 1950s Iran and the U.S. Raised by progressive Iranian parents, Roya meets Bahman, an activist student, at a Tehran stationery shop. They are planning to marry when Bahman mysteriously disappears. Roya moves to California where she studies science and marries the caring Walter. Sixty years later, Roya seeks answers to what happened to Bahman. Marnò's expressive narration reveals every nuance of Roya's emotional journey, as well as the complexity of loving her husband while mourning Bahman. Marnò slows the story when the moment demands that listeners take a breath to fully experience Roya's feelings. Sensitive portrayals of Roya's family and friends, and vivid descriptions of Iranian food and customs, add depth to this moving listen. M.J. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

08/05/2019

In this tender story of lifelong love, Kamali (Together Tea) moves from 2013 New England to violence in 1953 Tehran as citizens, a new Prime Minister, and the Shah of Iran clash. In 2013, Roya is 77 years old, nearing the end of her life with her American husband, when she discovers her fiancé from when she was growing up in Tehran is living in a retirement home nearby. She begins to relive her first meeting with young Bahman 60 years earlier in a small Tehran stationery shop. As is true with Roya’s father, Bahman is an avid supporter of the new Prime Minister Mossadegh, but Bahman takes it further with dangerous activism. The love that blossoms between the two 17-year-olds is intense and true, but Bahman’s mother is determined to direct her son’s interests away from Roya. It’s only with the help of Mr. Fahkri, who allows the young lovers privacy in his stationery shop, that the romance continues until a final misunderstanding; the couple is separated by expectations that they enter arranged marriages, as well as the violence that erupts in the streets when Mossadegh is overthrown. The loss of love and changing worlds is vividly captured by Kamali; time and circumstances kept these lovers apart, but nothing diminishes their connection. Readers will be swept away. (June)

Historical Novels Review

"Part of the joy of this book is the journey, the discovery of the why when we already know the what. This is a beautiful book with drool-worthy descriptions of Persian food. . . . This story is about the other side of love, which is grief, and the other side of grief, which is love."

The Missourian

"[A] tender, beautifully crafted novel . . . that reduced me to tears. The Stationery Shop is an exemplary novel about families and how our secrets build walls and make us ill. It’s a passionate book about love that endures and how fate often intervenes, forcing us to take paths we never would have envisioned."

WV) The Register-Herald (Beckley

"A sweet, lyrical story that blurs the lines of historical fiction and romance. Fans of Martha Hall Kelly and Azar Nafisi will enjoy this one."

Self.com

Kamali's careful attention to detail makes this novel an absolute must-read. She intertwines beautiful traditions within Persian culture (her description of traditional Iranian cuisine had my mouth watering) with gruesome events in Iranian history in a way that made me stay up past my bedtime just to reach the next chapter."

Jasmin Kaur

The writing was lush, immersive and so, very sincere. This beautiful love story, set upon a backdrop of political conflict and revolution, had me hooked from chapter one.

The Santa Barbara Independent

"A big, ambitious, beautifully executed novel that draws the reader in and never lets go.”

SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT

"[A] big, ambitious, beautifully executed novel that draws the reader in and never lets go."

Christian Science Monitor

The Stationery Shop is a wistful look at two idealists and the world they should have inherited . . . Kamali offers a paean not just to lost love, but to the poetry, food, and culture that fed their memories for 60 years.

Elinor Lipman

What a pleasure—a novel that is all at once masterfully plotted, beautifully written, and filled with characters who are arresting, lovable, and so real. Brava, Marjan Kamali; now that I’ve finished, I miss this world of yours.

BookReporter

"A beautifully written book that is full of emotion and heart. . . . Book groups will want to devour it —and serve some Persian food during their discussions."

The Hindu

"Reading The Stationery Shop felt like drinking from a cupful of sadness, and perversely relishing it till the very last drop."

Addison County Independent

"This tender, romantic tale is suffused with the scents, sights, and sounds of mid-century Iran; a firm sense of place evoked in the prose and communicated through poetic phrases. Believable, refreshing, enchanting."

Newsweek

"A powerful love story."

Working Mother

"If you’re looking for a summer release unlike any other, you’ll love The Stationery Shop."

Pop Sugar

"A beautiful, emotionally honest story about first love, deep family bonds, and fate."

Jasmin Darznik

"A beautifully immersive tale, THE STATIONERY SHOP brings to life a lost and complex world and the captivating characters who once called it home."

Shelf Awareness

Marjan Kamali weaves a powerful, heartbreaking story of star-crossed lovers and Iran's political upheavals...The Stationery Shop is at once a layered historical saga of a country struggling toward democracy and an intimate meditation on "a love from which we never recover.

Boston Magazine

"Grab your tissues . . . Marjan Kamali’s second novel channels love in the time of coup d’états. Set among the political upheaval of 1950s Tehran, The Stationery Shop follows teenager Roya as she discovers the power of love, loss, and then, decades later, fate. And did we mention you’ll need tissues?"

The Daily Nebraskan

"A heart-wrenching story about two literary souls torn apart by social upheaval . . . a tragically beautiful narrative of star-crossed lovers."

Whitney Scharer

Spanning decades and continents, Marjan Kamali’s richly imagined novel immerses us in the blossoming love affair between two Iranian teenagers, set against the political upheaval of 1950s Tehran. Evocative, devastating, and hauntingly beautiful, THE STATIONERY SHOP explores love’s power to transcend time and distance—and the ways fate can tear people apart and bring them back together. This book broke my heart again and again.

The Wall Street Journal

"[A] moving tale of lost love."

Real Simple

Marjan Kamali's The Stationery Shop is an affecting novel about first love.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A tender story of enduring love."

COSMOPOLITAN.COM

"I! Am! Obsessed! With! This! Book! . . . Think The Notebook, only better (no offense, Ryan Gosling)."

Woman's World

"A rich story of loss and true love."

Alyson Richman

"Set against the political turmoil of 1950's Tehran, Marjan Kamali's THE STATIONERY SHOP illuminates how love is experienced over time and influenced by the fingerprints of others. Yet. despite every obstacle, the power of heart and memory endure. A beautiful and sensitive novel that I loved from the first page."

Booklist

Kamali paints an evocative portrait of 1950s Iran and its political upheaval, and she cleverly writes the heartbreak of Roya and Bahman’s romance to mirror the tragic recent history of their country. Simultaneously briskly paced and deeply moving, this will appeal to fans of Khaled Hosseini and should find a wide audience.

Booklist

Kamali paints an evocative portrait of 1950s Iran and its political upheaval, and she cleverly writes the heartbreak of Roya and Bahman’s romance to mirror the tragic recent history of their country. Simultaneously briskly paced and deeply moving, this will appeal to fans of Khaled Hosseini and should find a wide audience.

Newsweek

"A powerful love story."

Working Mother

"If you’re looking for a summer release unlike any other, you’ll love The Stationery Shop."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170919147
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	06/18/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The Stationery Shop

2013

The Center

“I made an appointment to see him.”

She said it as if she were seeing the dentist or a therapist or the pushy refrigerator salesman who had promised her and Walter a lifetime guarantee of cold milk and crisp vegetables and unspoiled cheese if only they would buy this brand-new model.

Walter dried the dishes, his gaze on the kitchen towel and its print of a yellow chick holding an umbrella. He didn’t argue. Walter Archer’s penchant for logic, his ability to let reason trump all, was a testament to Roya’s own good judgment. For hadn’t she married a man who was reasonable and, my goodness, unbelievably understanding? Hadn’t she, in the end, not married that boy, the one she had met so many decades ago in a small stationery shop in Tehran, but lassoed her life instead to this Massachusetts-born pillar of stability? This Walter. Who ate a hard-boiled egg for breakfast almost every single day, who said as he dried the dishes, “If you want to see him, then you should. You’ve been a bit of a wreck, I’m afraid.”

By now Roya Archer was almost American, not just by marriage but by virtue of having been in these United States for over five decades. She could remember a childhood spent in the hot and dusty streets of Tehran, playing tag with her little sister, Zari, but her life now was carefully enclosed in New England.

With Walter.

One visit to one shop a mere week ago—to buy paper clips!—had cracked everything open. Once again she was mired in 1953. Cinema Metropole in the middle of Iran’s largest city that contentious summer. The red circular sofa in the lobby, over which a chandelier’s crystals glistened like corpulent tears, smoke from cigarettes floated in wisps. Up the stairs and into the movie theater he had led her, and there on the screen, stars with foreign names caressed each other. After the film, he had walked with her in the summer twilight. The sky was lavender and layered with shades of purple so varied, they seemed impossible. He had asked her to marry him near the jasmine-soaked bushes. His voice cracked when he said her name. They had exchanged countless love letters, planned their union. But in the end, nothing. Life had pulled out from under her everything that they had planned.

No worries.

Roya’s mother had always said that our fate is written on our foreheads when we’re born. It can’t be seen, can’t be read, but it’s there in invisible ink all right, and life follows that fate. No matter what.

She had squished that boy out of her mind for decades. She had a life to build, a country to get to know. Walter. A child to raise. That Tehran boy could very well be squeezed to the absolute bottom of the bucket, like a rag useless and worn out and pressed so far down into the depths that after a while he was almost forgotten.

But now she could finally ask him why he had left her there in the middle of the square.



Walter maneuvered the car into the slippery spot narrowed by snowbanks. When they jerked to a stop, Roya couldn’t open the car door. Somehow, during their long drive together, they’d become locked in.

He came around and opened the car door because he was Walter, because he had been raised by a mother (Alice: kind, sweet, smelled of potato salad) who had taught him how to treat a lady. Because he was seventy-seven and couldn’t comprehend why young men today didn’t handle their wives like fragile glass. He helped Roya out of the car and made sure her knitted scarf protected her nose and mouth against the wind. Together they walked carefully across the parking lot and up the steps of the gray building of the Duxton Senior Center.

A burst of overheated air greeted them in the lobby. A young woman, about thirty, her blond hair in a bun, sat behind a desk. A plastic badge with the name CLAIRE was pinned to her chest. Flyers tacked onto a bulletin board behind her desk exclaimed “Movie Night!” and “Bavarian Lunch!” all with exclamation marks, even as the edges of the flyers furled, even as crumpled people in wheelchairs inched their way across the linoleum floor and others pushing walkers steadied themselves so as not to fall.

“Hi there! Joining us for Friday lunch today?” Claire’s voice was loud.

Walter opened his mouth to say something.

“Hello, he won’t,” Roya quickly said. “My husband is going to try the famous faux lobster roll at the Dandelion Deli. I looked it up on the Yelp. So rare to find lobster roll served in the middle of winter, don’t you think? Even if it’s fake.” She was rambling. She was trying so hard not to be nervous. “It was given five stars.”

“That deli?” The receptionist looked surprised.

“Their lobster roll,” Roya mumbled.

Walter sighed. He held up five fingers to indicate to Claire that his wife believed in the five stars.

“Oh, okay! Lobster!” Claire nodded. She pronounced it lobstah. “Have to trust those Yelp reviews!”

“Go on, then,” Roya said gently to her husband. She raised herself on her toes to kiss Walter’s freshly shaven cheek. The crepey skin, his Irish Spring soap scent. She wanted to reassure him.

“Righty-oh.” Walter nodded. “You got it. Off I go, then.” But he didn’t move.

She squeezed his hand, the familiar soft grip of her life.

“Don’t let her get into too much trouble now,” Walter finally said to the receptionist. His voice was strained.

A blast of cold air filled the lobby when Walter walked out the double doors and descended into the icy parking lot.

Roya stood uneasily in front of the desk. She was suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of ammonia and some kind of stew. Beef? Definitely beef with onions. The heat, cranked up to compensate for the New England cold, made the stew smell overpowering. She couldn’t believe she had actually come here. The radiators hissed, wheelchairs squeaked, it all suddenly felt like a terrible mistake.

“And how may I help you?” Claire asked. A gold cross hung around her neck. She looked at Roya with a strange expression, as though she knew her.

“I made an appointment to see someone,” Roya said. “One of your assisted-living patients.”

“Ah, you mean a resident. Great. And who may that be?”

“Mr. Bahman Aslan.” The words came out of Roya’s mouth slowly, like rings of smoke, visible and real. It had been years since she’d said his full name out loud.

The cross on Claire’s neck glinted under the fluorescent lights. Walter would be out of the parking lot by now.

Claire got up and came around the desk to face Roya. She gently took both of Roya’s hands in hers. “It is so nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Archer. I am Claire Becker, the assistant administrator at the Duxton Center. Thank you for coming. I have heard so very much about you. It means a lot to me that you are here.”

So she wasn’t the receptionist—she was an administrator. How did Claire Becker know Roya’s name? It must have been in the appointment book. She had made an appointment, after all. But why did this young woman act like she knew her? And how had she heard so much about her?

“Please come,” Claire said softly. “I’ll take you right to him.” This time she didn’t add the obligatory exclamation mark that seemed necessary for covering up misery around here.

Roya followed Claire down a corridor and into a large hall furnished with a long table and plastic folding chairs arranged on either side. But no one sat at the table playing bingo or gossiping.

Claire pointed to the far end of the room. “He’s been waiting for you.”

By the window sat a man in a wheelchair next to an empty plastic chair. His back was to them; Roya couldn’t see his face. Claire started to approach him, but then she stopped. She cocked her head and took in Roya from head to toe as if measuring her potential for safety, for harm, for drama. Claire fidgeted with her necklace. “Is there anything I can get you? Water? Tea? Coffee?”

“Oh, I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

“Are you sure?”

“You are kind to ask. But no.”

Now it was Claire’s turn to linger. By God, no one wanted to leave Roya alone with this . . . resident. For crying out loud. As if she, a small woman in her seventies, held any kind of power over him or anyone else anymore. As if she, Roya Archer, could torch the place down with her presence, create a blast just by being there.

“I am good,” she said. She’d learned to say that from Americans: I’m good, I’m fine, it’s all okay, okey-dokey. Easy-peasy Americanisms. She knew how to do it. Her heart pounded, but she looked steadily at Claire.

Claire lowered her head and finally turned and walked out. The click-click of her heels as she left the room matched Roya’s extra-loud heartbeat.

She could still follow Claire and leave this smelly place, catch up to Walter before he finished his lunch, go home, climb into bed, and pretend never to have made this strange miscalculation. It wasn’t too late. She imagined Walter hunched over his ginger beer and lobster roll alone at that deli—poor thing. But no. She’d come here to finally find out.

One foot in front of the other, that was how you did it. She forced herself toward the wheelchair by the window. Her heels didn’t click; she had on her trusty gray thick-soled shoes. Walter had insisted that she wear snow boots, but she had refused. She was willing to accept a lot of things, but seeing her old lover for the first time in sixty years while wearing fat Eskimo boots was one of the few things she could not accept.

The man was oblivious to her presence, as if she didn’t exist.

“I’ve been waiting,” a voice suddenly said in Farsi, and Roya’s body buzzed. That voice had both energized and comforted her when they were inseparable.

It was 1953. It was summer. She was seventeen. New England melted away, and the cold outside and the false heat inside evaporated, and Roya’s legs were tanned and toned, and they were standing, she and he, by the barricades, leaning onto the splintered wood, screaming at the top of their lungs. The crowd billowed, the sun burned her scalp, two long braids ended at her breasts, her Peter Pan collar was soaked in sweat. All around them, people pumped their fists and cried as one. Anticipation, the knowing of something new and better about to arrive, the certainty that she would be his in a free, democratic Iran—it was all theirs. They had owned a future and a fate, engaged in a country on the verge of a bold beginning. She had loved him with the force of a blast. It had been impossible to imagine a future in which she didn’t hear his voice every day.

On the linoleum, Roya saw her feet, suddenly unrecognizable to her—in gray little-old-lady shoes with thick soles and tiny bows on top.

The man wheeled his chair around and his face broke into a smile. He looked tired; his lips were dry and deep lines scored his forehead. But his eyes were joyful and filled with hope.

“I’ve been waiting,” he repeated.

Was it possible to slip so easily back? His voice was the same. It was him, all of it, the eyes, the voice, her Bahman.

But then she remembered why she had come. “I see.” Her voice came out much stronger than she’d expected. “But all I’ve wanted to ask you is why on earth didn’t you wait last time?”

She sank into the chair next to him, as tired as she’d ever been in all her years on earth. She was seventy-seven and exhausted. But as she remembered that cruel, disillusioning summer from which she’d never fully recovered, she felt as if she were still seventeen.

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