Beautifully and painfully expressed, Sheyda, the main character, reflects on her life from a prison where she awaits her fate, having been accused of killing her mother. It is clear that she does not have a solid grasp on reality, so her interpretations of the world are suspect both in past events and her current plight. At the core we find a girl who struggled in her childhood with the restrictions placed on girls in her society while she also struggles with her own grasp of reality past and present.

Engaging and well written, fans of 'Alias Grace' will absolutely love this book. The title alone is an eye-catcher, and the tale is at times poignant. A look inside the mind of a girl who begins to lose touch with reality, and told as she sees everything - from childhood to her current imprisonment, awaiting her faith. Brilliant writing.

A fascinating and disturbing tale of a young girl , made more interesting by the unreliable nature of her story telling. A blend of magical and macabre, there were some truly beautiful sections of prose in this story of a young Iranian woman, imprisoned for the murder of her mother. The author paints a vivid picture of the struggles faced by girls and women in the changing society following the revolution and the birth of the Islamic republic, and while some, like teenage crushes are universal, others relate more specifically to the society. Sheyda is a fascinating character, and at times I found her plight moving. The motif of birds that runs throughout the book was particularly well used in the final chapters , and was one of my favourite things about the book overall. Throughout the book we learn that Sheyda is not always in tune with reality, and can create whole scenarios from her incredibly vivid imagination, not without tragic consequences, but by the end we come to see that in many ways she sees clearly, much more so than many of the people around her.
The book matches up to the promise of its strange and arresting cover, and is one of the more lyrical I have read this year.

In a concept similar to that of Midnight's Children, Sheyda is a young Iranian girl born on the day that the mullahs came to power. She is a rebellious fantasist with an unerring ability to drive others away, and the despair of her parents. Theft and self-harm are just some of the frustrations that she poses for them.

It becomes clear that Sheyda is to die, executed by the regime. Farmehri takes a long time to develop this side of Sheyda's story (with echoes of Laurence Sterne, it takes 50% of the book for Sheyda to be born) but it is far stronger and better when she gets to the scenes of Sheyda's adulthood and her life during incarceration.

This book was a bit hit-and-miss for me. I found Sheyda as a child to be a tiresome and annoying character that I did not warm to, and the writing in those early chapters was trite. The latter half was much better, with elegiac prose, and heart-rending plot developments. I did not think that the author did much with her Rushdie-like concept of Sheyda's birth date, and that seemed little more than contrivance. I'm torn about this book; I did not personally enjoy it a whole lot, but I could definitely see others getting a lot more out of it.

Beautifully written, poignant and sad. This book is simply written as the narrator describes how she ended up in prison and tells about her life. This is a sad story. Sheyda is only young. She is living in Iran. The punishment for the crime she confessed to is hanging. She just seems to be accepting her fate. This book leaves me feeling sad but also wondering how mentally stable Sheyda is and if she is so worn down by life that she thinks compliance is easier.

This is hands down the best book I've read in the last few months. First, the title alone is near poetic and I was immediately drawn in by the macabre cover image. It's a unpredictable, unexpected, beautiful story that follows a 20-year old girl named Sheyda imprisoned in Iran. Through her eyes, I got to see Iranian society as she saw it. I especially loved how human she was and because it's told in first-person, her side of reality was rather unreliable, but it was so easy to connect with her, to be flooded with empathy for her.

THROUGH THE SAD WOOD OUR CORPSES WILL HANG is a buffet of beautifully adored details and rich exploration into the darkness of society and the twisted nature of truth. It will make you uncomfortable, it will make you question everything, it will make you wonder why.

And despite this, I couldn't put it down.

This disturbing debut novel tackles freedom in a myriad of ways, as Sheyda questions how one can retain democracy of self when Iran's people are facing a totalitarian regime.

Sheyda Porrouya, a twenty-year-old Iranian born at the time of her country’s transition to an Islamic republic, has been charged with killing her mother, confessed to the crime and been sentenced to death. All this information is given early on in the book, and it presents a weird juxtaposition for the reader. If there’s any doubt that the political reality of being a woman in post-’70s Iran will come into play within the pages of Farmehri’s book, having Sheyda’s birthday correspond with the beginning of a new era of social conservatism and female oppression would seem to clear that mystery right up. It might be easy, therefore, to see Sheyda primarily as a victim, if it weren’t for the fact that she may also be a murderer.

Through the Sad Wood Our Corpses Will Hang stacks up the hallmarks of an enticing suspense novel, as well as those of a well-argued sociopolitical statement, and playfully, languidly knocks them over, batting expectations around as the reader becomes entranced and forgets what they came to this text for, exactly, how they came to be rolling around in this strange, cruel and enrapturing world in the first place. We see Sheyda in prison, adapting to her new environment and the reality of her death sentence, but we’re frequently pushed back into her memories. In time, those memories unfurl with such brilliant abandon that it becomes easy to forget about the thread of the plot doggedly pushing its way through the alternating darkness and brightness of our main character’s childhood and adolescence.

As we watch Sheyda’s life through her recollections, we may keep looking for clues that reveal what’s to come, but this isn’t quite that kind of game. The clues that are present are almost too obvious: On a trip with her family, she tosses a bucketful of fish her father has caught back into the sea, wanting to save their lives. On the same trip, she experiments with letting herself drown, convinced that God will save her. At another point, she cuts open her teddy bear with a pair of scissors and tries to shove herself inside of it. One night shortly after, she’s caught standing over her sleeping mother with scissors, thereby earning herself a long course of therapy. Aside from this obsession she has with the power of being able to give or take life, her past world is full of relatively normal details that nevertheless sparkle crisp and fresh in the mind of the convicted woman and on Farmehri’s pages.

The tensions present in Sheyda’s family, particularly those linked with her mother’s looming unhappiness, are shown in a number of ways, including her mother’s refusal to celebrate any birthday, beginning with her thirtieth. But these are presented against a backdrop of such rich descriptions of the surrounding world—the sights and sounds of the neighborhood where the family lives, the smells of cooking, songs and stories, trips taken through busy streets, past snow-capped mountains—that it’s easy to read much of the book as though it contains a different kind of story, as if it’s not going to eventually swing back to a girl in her prison cell awaiting execution.

As its title suggests, Farmehri’s novel is never far from the corporeal, but it demonstrates that the tangible world permits and even suggests leaps of imagination, and that as humans, our forays into philosophy can never be entirely abstract. Sheyda reminds us that everyone is trapped in their body, but she does so in a way that at times feels surprisingly warm and liberating, even when she speaks of her doubts about the possibility of death—or, in fact, anything—bringing freedom. Whether or not you believe what she’s telling you, it’s hard to look away from what she has to show you.

Without a doubt, this book is one of the best reads of the year.

"Those were the days... when hairs were not pulled for being beautiful, and dreams were not nipped for being dreams, and wings were not clipped for wanting to fly."

THROUGH THE SAD WOOD OUR CORPSES WILL HANG is the unusual tale of a twenty-year-old woman named Sheyda who is disassociated with reality, set in a city in Iran. The unusual narrator reminiscences about her life in first-person, and discusses in length her upbringing; her personal rejections of culture and religion; the torn dynamics between herself and her family; and her struggle to find love in the broken world. Told in flashbacks that ultimately lead to Sheyda's execution, it is suggested that she is responsible for the death of her mother, and the story eventually shifts to focus on the real events of what happened on the day of her mother's death.

The prose in this book is undeniably beautiful, emancipated by the unhinged mental state of the narrator. Sheyda's logical mental leaps disassociate her with reality and portray her dissatisfaction with life, and a yearning to find another like her. In her lonely existence, she finds comfort in broken dreams and in imagining returned love. Between moments of disturbed joy in Sheyda's imagination and her dark sense of humour, she is subjected to abuse in the conditions of a notorious prison. The use of physical symbols is also really interesting as it is ambiguous as to what Sheyda sees is actually there, such as the black cat and the birds. Her character is so fully fleshed out that the reader can fully imagine meeting Sheyda as a friend, and imagine how she might think and react.

I really love the way that the author blends in a cultural shadow over the story, it isn't overbearing and really highlights Sheyda's contrast to the world around her. She lacks the capacity to understand the conformity of those around her, and instead would rather live forever in her illusions. Essentially, she would make a brilliant romantic poet. It's also interesting that Sheyda's mental disassociation is eventually dismissed by her doctor, who believes that she is faking her behaviour, and that her dark humoured comments are in fact honest thoughts. Entirely alone, her isolation might very well be the reason for her increasing spiral into madness.

Overall, this novel is not for the fainthearted and really encourages the reader to think deeply and question every passing scene from the unreliable narrator's point of view. The abrupt ending drops the reader with a sense of ambiguity, where it is doubtful as to whether or not Sheyda achieves the freedom she has been craving for, and delivers a cold reminder of the character's strained relationship with reality. If you're looking for something bizarre to read set in a theocratic country, with some brilliant and evocative writing and dark themes, then this is definitely the book for you. I would definitely love to read more from this author.

Note: This book was kindly provided for free by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the publisher for this incredible opportunity.

That’s how memories and knowledge were preserved in my house. They had to be smothered to stay alive.

Iranian Sheyda Porrouya knows how she will die. She will be hung, and as she says “I’ll submit to my destiny without a struggle. I will show them. I don’t like surprises. At least I know how and when. How many people have that luxury?” Growing up in an Iran cleansed of all things Western, to parents who remember their freedoms makes for a strange story. From the start the reader is well aware that Sheyda has murdered her mother, but the why isn’t solid. Much like her mind, we don’t land on anything stable- it is a tricky path we walk in her fractured telling. Through the past we learn of disturbing behaviors, from small thefts to bed wetting- something was deeply wrong from the start but why? At some point love sends her into a mad black hole, and what a strange love, first seeing him when she was only 10. If only the tranquility she felt with her ‘crush’ could save her from herself. Euphoric with love for the crippled man, Mustafa, who she has private classes with, her hungry need is doomed from the start. His tragedy seeps into her, poisoning her future. In repression, what else is there but fantasy?

Birds follow her through life, a symbol of what? Freedom she will never have. She spends too much time in therapy pretending, playing mind games. Is she a consummate liar or too intelligent? Deaths that take away not just her father, damaging an already bent mind, but expose her and her mother to her father’s secret life. The doctor not even aware when she is serious about her comments, or joking. Her hungry love seen as crushes, rather than soul defining passions, as with Mustafa -more infatuation, unhealthy obsession, fantasy. Is she suffering from madness? Is the madness just escapism, a way to survive the confinement women in Iran suffer?

Was it the solitude that created a strange girl? Was it the restrictions of Iran? Was it her parents own hunger for a more vibrant past? If only imagining yourself into a different life, into being a different person could truly happen. Maybe a split was necessary to escape her polluted mind, maybe repression creates monsters. Sheyda lives in fantasy, supplanting Mustafa’s dear face on other men, creating her own reality when any threat tries to claim what’s hers. If only she could believe in love others have for her. Maybe her father wasn’t so different in his deceptions, his other life… maybe her family is made of ‘storytellers’ and that’s a disease.

Her mother isn’t any less damaged for the wanting in her life, for the sacrifice of having a child and loving the wrong man and being trapped in the harsh world of Iran. Is Sheyda a murderous devil worshiper as she’s been pegged? Or is she, like her mother, resolved to find freedom within the loving sleep of death?

I was looking for something different to read, Sheyda’s misleading narrative is like a nightmare, or a fall into the void of self-delusions and then a light and your led to the truth. It took a while to enjoy the flow, because the beginning is like jumping into someone’s tormented mind but it begins to come together, and the final moments really moved me. In the end, Shyeda teaches that the truth is slippery, and for some a lie may be your only escape. The novel is as uniquely strange as the cover. Was she a blessing or a curse? It was a welcome break from my usual reading. From flinching in embarrassment over Sheyda’s odd behaviors and her mortifying passion for Mustafa to feeling empathy for a caged life, it’s hard not to understand why she would follow her mother’s ‘flight’.

Publication Date: October 1, 2017

Guernica Editions

When I read authors of a completely different cultural background from my own, I really want to learn from them. Ava Farmehri writes from the perspective of a girl growing up in Iran, but because the girl suffers lifelong psychological maladies and treatments, her reporting is unreliable. The basic premise is 20-yr old Sheyda Porrouya is imprisoned for the murder of her mother in 1999. We don't know if she actually committed the crime because she is insane, or not. To be honest, I kind of wondered if she went insane because her parents coddled her so atrociously, but maybe I was missing the point. I wasn't a very sympathetic audience, mostly because I resented Farmehri for not being more straightforward with her story.

I loved the example of taarouf in the taxi cab: "the exaggerated self-depracating politeness that Persians are so famous for, repeatedly saying, reason or no reason: "Thank you, you are too kind," "I beg your pardon," "But only after you" and "I am your sincere friend". There were a ton of similar cultural, witty gems and I appreciate the beauty of the imagery here, for example that Sheyda attracts birds; but I don't understand why or to what extent that is happening in reality. Similarly, I wanted to understand the level of isolation Sheyda was actually suffering, whether it was due to her bizarre behavior or documented sickness, or all in her head; and answers were not forthcoming.