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A Memoir of Secrets, Loss, and Love From Iran to America
by Rahimeh Andalibian
In this searing memoir, Iran-born author Rahimeh Andalibian tells the story of her family: their struggle to survive the 1979 revolution, their move to California, and their attempts to acculturate in the face of teenage rebellion, murder, addiction, and new traditions. Andalibian struggles to make sense of two brutal crimes: one solved by her father and the other of which her beloved oldest brother stands accused.
She takes us first into her family's tranquil, jasmine-scented days of prosperity in their luxury hotel in Mashhad, Iran. Their life is ruptured by the 1979 revolution as they flee: first to the safety of a mansion in Tehran, next to a squalid one-room flat in London, and finally to California, where they suffer a different kind of revolution.
Struggling to adjust to a new host culture, they soon discover that although they escaped Iran, they are not free from their own lies and hidden truths. As the family comes to grips with their new home, the strength of their bonds are tested by love, loyalty, compassion, hate, pain, loss—and the will to survive. Heartbreaking and intimately told, this is a universal story of healing, rebirth after tragedy, and hard-won redemption.
"Starred Review. [Andalibian] sharply addresses topics relating to religious and political repression, profiling, and childhood trauma, while skillfully crafting an insightful, passionate immigrant's story with cross-cultural resonance." - Publishers Weekly
"A powerful and uplifting memoir of tragedy and healing." - Kirkus
This information about The Rose Hotel was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rahimeh Andalibian was born in Tehran and moved with her family to California in 1986, at the onset of the Iranian revolution. Raised and schooled in LA, she is a clinical psychologist specializing in intergenerational family therapy. A dynamic speaker and a savvy, promotion-driven author, she speaks frequently at conferences and has promoted the book on Martha Stewart Radio and BlogHer.
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