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The Walking: A Novel Hardcover – March 5, 2013

by Laleh Khadivi (Author)
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 29 ratings
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Two brothers from a small Iranian mountain village-Saladin, who has always dreamed of leaving, and Ali, who has never given it a thought-are forced to flee for their lives in the aftermath of a political killing. The journey is beset by trouble from the start, but over the treacherous mountains they go, on foot to Istanbul and onward by freighter to the Azores.There, after a painful parting, Saladin alone continues on the final leg, on a cargo plane all the way to Los Angeles. He will have a new life in California, but will never be whole again without his beloved brother and the living heritage that has always defined him.

The Walking is the second novel in a trilogy about Khadivi's homeland of Iran, a country poised between the ancient and the modern and tossed by political winds that have buffeted the entire globe. Here, Khadivi tells the story of exodus from homeland, an experience that hundreds of thousands of Iranians underwent, and which millions of others, from different places around the world, have also experienced. In the story of two brothers, Khadivi brilliantly explores the tension alive in all immigrants, between the love and attachment to the place they must leave, and the hopes and dreams that lie in the places they are headed.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    272 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Bloomsbury USA
  4. Publication date
    March 5, 2013
  5. Dimensions
    5.95 x 0.99 x 8.65 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1596916990
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1596916999
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Khadivi follows up her debut, The Age of Orphans (2009), with a tale of two brothers caught in the crosshairs of the Iranian revolution. Saladin and his older brother, Ali, flee Iran after they are forced to participate in a brutal execution carried out by their father and a mullah. On the run, the teen boys only have each other. They cross the border with two shady drug runners and secure passage in cramped quarters on a ship that takes them to an island where they wait with other refugees for a flight that will take them to a place where they hope to get a fresh start. But it is only Saladin who makes it to Los Angeles to embark on a new life. Khadivi moves back and forth in time to reveal how the brothers came to be separated, but also shifts perspective to allow for a wider look at the plight of the Iranians who didn’t leave the country after the Ayatollah seized power. This is a deeply personal and revelatory novel. --Kristine Huntley

About the Author

Laleh Khadivi was born in Esfahan Iran in 1977. In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution her family fled, first to Belgium and Puerto Rico, finally settling in Canada and the United States. Khadivi received her MFA from Mills College and was a Creative Writing Fellow in Fiction at Emory University. She now lives in San Francisco.This is her second novel.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury USA; 1st edition (March 5, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1596916990
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1596916999
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.95 x 0.99 x 8.65 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 29 ratings

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Laleh Khadivi

Laleh Khadivi

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Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
29 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Clkt
4.0 out of 5 stars Informative about another culture and parts of the world. ...
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2017
Verified Purchase
Informative about another culture and parts of the world. How people live under dictatorship. I have given this book to some Egyptian friends to see if they have a different perspective since they lived in Egypt during the period this book covers. 4 stars because it can be confusing with different names and places. Has to be read carefully. But the informative parts outweighs the confusing ones.
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Marvin L. Smith III
5.0 out of 5 stars A real feel for life in Iran in the 1970's
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2016
Verified Purchase
I loved this book, I felt like I was in Iran every time that I picked the book up and read. It was very enlightening as to the day to day life in an Iranian village and the overthrow of the Shah and rise of Khomeini. Ms Khadivi must also write poetry because her style was quite poetic at times.
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Jonathan P. Hodgson
4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling story
Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2014
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Once one gets used to the out of sequence telling this novel is quite compelling. One gets some idea of the effect of the Itanian revolution on the Iranian Kurds. His journey to to Los Angeles and his start on anew life make for engaging reading.
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Ben Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars The Walking
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2013
Verified Purchase
A visited artist. Laleh Khadivi's 3-novel trilogy is one of the great ongoing projects in all of literature. Every American could learn not only something of Iran and America's troubled but inseparable relation but also about the wild darkness at the heart of a man.
2 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Exile and immigration, less satisfying as a story
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2017
Verified Purchase
This "novel" is less a story than it is a reflection on the state of being an exile from your "own" country and an immigrant into another country. Especially when the country you left, in fact just one village in that country, had been your family's home for many generations.

That wasn't my experience at all growing up. My ancestors lived all over the US and Europe, each generation in a new city, so in that way this book was interesting for me. I begin to understand that for many people in this world, moving to a new country, or even just a long way away from your childhood home, can be wrenching.

But in the end, I read for good stories and interesting, believable characters. This book was not intended as that kind of novel.
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Mary Whipple
5.0 out of 5 stars "Everywhere, we are leaving. In desert villages, mountain towns and old cities, the worried minds hum...Do we go?"
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2013
(4.5 stars) Laleh Khadivi's haunting style and musical, even psalm-like cadences, so memorable in The Age of Orphans, the first novel of this trilogy, continue in this novel of the diaspora of Iranians during the Islamic revolution of 1979. Here, her poetic style hits rare heights as she recreates the initial shock of bloodshed and the decision of two teenage Kurdish boys to escape to Turkey while they can during the earliest days of Ayatollah Khomeini's takeover. With the focus on just two boys as they leave their native land, The Walking is simultaneously much narrower in focus and much more universal in its themes than The Age of Orphans, which covers several decades during the reign of the Shah. Unlike that novel, this novel says almost nothing about the violence and the killing, concentrating instead on the lives and innermost questions, thoughts, and fears, of the two Khourdi brothers as they leave their village for a new life.

The brothers' story, so intense and so true in its characterizations, obviously parallels stories the author herself has grown up with as part of a family of Iranian emigrees in the US. Her recreation of the traumas and hopes of newcomers in a foreign country throbs with life and emotion, incorporating the kinds of personal details which can only come from first-hand knowledge. The novel, stunning in its insights, hits all the right notes as Khadivi recreates the many issues which newcomers to a foreign culture must experience, though few authors articulate them so clearly.

When Saladin Khourdi, a teenager from a mountain village in Iran, arrives in Los Angeles, he has no support system, other than the Hollywood films which he has devoured since early childhood. Khadivi recreates his earliest days in the US without a shred of sentimentality, though these are days in which he has no place to stay, no food to eat, and no money. Concentrating on his daily life and his thoughts, she brings Saladin to life allowing him to maintain his dignity, despite his hardships, while creating a chronicle of the immigrant experience which achieves a rare a kind of universality.

Khadivi, a poet at heart, shifts points of view at will, developing separate portraits of the lives of some who have decided to leave, some who are thinking about leaving, and some who are committed to staying, moving among points of view as a musician might change melodies which become part of a symphony. Almost instantly, she shifts time and place as Saladin or his brother deal with life after crossing the border into Turkey, shifting then to Los Angeles, shifting back to the Azores where they await a flight to the US, then shifting back to Iran or Turkey or some other setting. Her language keeps the reader completely in her thrall as Saladin moves through Los Angeles and its suburbs, as he finds a short-term and then a long-term job, a place to live, a girl who means something to him, and as he lives his new life with mixed success. Filled with repeating images and symbols, the novel lives and breathes. Though there are few minor missteps, especially regarding unlikely coincidences which move the action, one would have to have a heart of stone to let that interfere with the enjoyment of this novel and its many insights.
6 people found this helpful
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A. Alexander
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful prose pulls you in
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2013
I picked this off the new arrivals shelf at the library and am very glad I did. The style is unusual, yet compelling. I found I couldn't put it down for 70 pages and then I had to stop, almost like I was out of breath. A few similar rounds and I finished the story. Khadivi really captures the poignancy and anguish involved in immigration, both those who leave and those who stay behind. I also learned a lot about the particular immigrant experience of Iranians and what it was like when Khomeini came in. I am about the same age as Saladin, so even more powerful to me personally.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Great writing from a great writer
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 18, 2017
Verified Purchase
I like the spare, descriptive writing of Khadive and look forward to reading this book, The Walking
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