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I first heard about The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali from Anne Bogel on Episode 194 of the What Should I Read Next Podcast and, like so many other titles, immediately added it to my list of recommended titles to my electronic library.  (If you’re new around here, my holds list is vast and wide, and frequently an organizing tool for our posts, as it was this month.)  Here’s what I’m sad about – that it took so ding dang long for me / us to circle around to this 2019 title.  UGH!  Trigger warnings for mental illness and death of a young child.  If you have questions about those warnings or the content, our DMs are always open.

The Stationery Shop is a quiet story of an Iranian woman and the tumultuous times and loves of her life, with timelines in 2013 and starting in 1953.  The story opens in 2013 as Roya travels with her husband, Walter, through the New England winter to meet with Bahman, a man she knew 60 years ago in Tehran.  Then we are transported back to 1953, before Roya and Bahman met, to learn of Roya’s life, family, and how they met in a stationery shop, and had a whirlwind romance, which ended when he didn’t show up for a meeting one day.  The narrative then follows Roya to California for college, where she meets Walter, and through her life, including how she finds Bahman to see him 60 years after their relationship.

Truly, The Stationery Shop is a story of Roya moving ahead, despite what could have been with Bahman, and what follows instead, with Walter.  It’s also a story of young love in Tehran, with a backdrop of political unrest, familial struggles, and dramatic change that influenced a generation and beyond.  It’s also the story of an Iranian woman making the best of the mess that has been dealt her, Bahman’s rejection, political changes in Iran, and an opportunity to attend college in the US.  Roya faces so many struggles due to the differences in cultures, her gender in the 1950s and 1960s, and more.  While I didn’t fully understand her relationship with Walter and have a great many questions about that, I adore the glimpses into her past, and the tales of their courtship.  The writing is so amazing and picturesque, I could imagine the streets and squares in Tehran, the restaurants and kitchen in California, and the streets of New England.  The way Persian food is described each time Roya and the women in her family cook is so thorough I could picture and just almost smell everything, and I definitely wanted to be a fly on those walls, or better yet a guest at those tables.  

I’m giving The Stationery Shop a solid four stars for amazing writing, a fantastic glimpse at 1950s Tehran and California, and a gorgeous story of resilience.  I’m very interested in Kamali’s debut novel, Together Tea, and really hoping HBO comes through for us with this adaptation.

What is a novel that isn’t anything you thought it would be, but is everything it needs to be?

~Nikki 

P.S. When I looked to determine where I’d first heard about The Stationery Shop, there was a note on the book’s page that the Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club read it paired with A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza and I want to cosign this pairing and the suggestion of that title in general.  Start with The Stationery Shop and follow it with A Place for Us.

Marjan Kamali is a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing, and that’s just the most recent of her accolades. Her debut novel Together Tea, published by HarperCollins in 2013, was a Massachusetts Book Award Finalist. 2019’s The Stationery Shop has a laundry list of accolades beginning with being a national bestseller and continuing with being one of NPR’s Best Books of 2019. Her short works have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Literary Hub, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Between them, her two novels have been published in over 20 languages. Kamali has a bachelor’s in English from the University of California, Berkeley, an MBA from Columbia University, and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from New York University. Born in Turkey to Iranian parents, she’s lived in Turkey, Iran, Germany, Kenya, and now lives in the Boston area with her family where she teaches at GrubStreet.

Darling Readers, I, like Nikki, am beyond annoyed that I have waited almost 4 years to read The Stationery Shop! Kamali’s writing is gorgeous and flowing. Poetic like the Rumi poems that are quoted throughout the novel. I love the contrast of Roya’s two relationships. With Bahman, they’re both young and filled with hope and life, and Roya hasn’t experienced much hardship or heartbreak in her life. Bahman does bring about such trials for Roya that she attends college in California where she meets steady New Englander Walter. He is a pillar of stability and predictability in Roya’s several years of upheaval – emotionally, culturally, and physically. I can understand why her respect and appreciation of who Walter is became a comfort and a desirable attribute to base her future life upon. Her marriage to Walter was seemingly boring as compared to the passionate relationship she had with Bahman, but it was not without its surprises and joys. There are worse things on which to build a life.

The best part of the book was the final chapters where great big bows were put on everyone’s relationships and we as readers got the details we were so desperately craving. I’m giving The Stationery Shop a solid 4 stars and myself a slap on the hand for not having read it sooner. I’m so glad I did. It’s a great summer read, filled with everything that makes life worth living and those things that make the little joys all the greater when they occur, love, heartbreak, joy, death. A full circle story that spans an entire lifetime of joy and tragedy.

~Ashley

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