On the Edge
Margaret Jull Costa and Rafael Chirbes
Book
On the Edge is a monumental fresco of a brutal contemporary Spain in free fall On the Edge opens...
Thriller
Sex in the Name of God
8.0
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Whether atheist or Christian, man or woman, straight or gay, tolerant or not . . . how much does the...
Religion Philosophy
Redeeming Love
10.0
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alifornia’s gold country, 1850. A time when men sold their souls for a bag of gold and women sold...
Slave Girl - Return to Hell
Book
In her bestselling book Slave Girl, Sarah Forsyth told of her terrible ordeal as a young woman...
The Big Fix: Hope After Heroin
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After surviving nearly a decade of heroin abuse and hard living on the streets of San Francisco's...
Hidden in Plain Sight: America's Slaves of the New Millennium
Book
Pimp-controlled sex workers, exploited migrants, domestic servants, and sex trafficking of runaway...
Inji works for a secret branch of a well-known matchmaking agency. Men who would like a wife without the long term commitment, hire a Field Wife. She fulfils their every wish, be it domestic or sexual. Inji’s current husband is a repeat contract. He’s not very good at being a husband, and reinforces Inji’s opinions on marriage: unnecessary and unfulfilling. And then there’s the possibility of domestic violence and exploitation.
To be fair, this doesn’t paint a great picture of marriage in (this case) Korea. Inji doesn’t even refer to her husband by name. He’s just “husband”, which makes him almost incidental to the story.
There’s a lot going on in this novel: family dynamics, exploitation, modern slavery, death (by suicide?), prostitution.
And what is the trunk in the title? I personally think it’s Inji’s personal baggage: the emotions, feelings and responsibilities that she carries around with her all the time. This trunk goes with her between field husband, her family and her flat. She’s never without it.
Is it the thriller that it’s sold as? I don’t think so, but it is a very interesting glance into life in Korea, and I really enjoyed it.
ClareR (5854 KP) rated The Persians in Books
Feb 3, 2025
Both the women in Iran and those in the US are non-conformists, rule breakers - and some more than others. There’s the obvious Shirin, who’s arrested on prostitution charges at the beginning of the book, and Bita, who decides to break away from her family history and wealth, and make her own way. Then there’s the matriarch, Elizabeth, who remains in Iran and uses her age and family name to get away with not following the rules of Islamic law (to some degree), and her granddaughter Niaz, who is arrested and put in a Tehran jail.
A lot of secrets are revealed (there are some big secrets to be revealed!), and when mothers and daughters are honest and truthful with one another, relationships can be repaired. But will they?
A very enjoyable, somewhat escapist read - I mean, the wealth of these people is startling!
Dr. Knox
Book
Dr Adam Knox returns from the war in Afghanistan a little rougher, a little wiser, and a lot more...
