This book has stayed with me, long after I finished it. Featuring an unreliable narrator, and classic literary references against the backdrop of political instability that most readers will be able to remember hearing about in world news, if not witnessing themselves. Through The Sad Wood Our Corpses Will Hang is a poignant, masterful work that deserves the same acclaim as Alias Grace. I sincerely hope Farmehri continues to write, and look forward to reading anything else from her.

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.

This is excellent. I love the writing and Sheyda and all her commentary on the world. I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and I can honestly say this is one to buy.

Strange, startling, and incredibly memorable.  This is definitely a title which I will be recommending.

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.

I was slightly interested throughout the novel. Nothing more.

With such an unusual title this book is certainly an eye catcher.

Telling the tale of a twenty-year-old woman named Sheyda, 

Set in Iran, we learn of her life, and while this book tells of her disassociation with her realities it is a fascinating book. The insights of where she lives and how she lives is amazing. 

Accused of murdering her mother, jailed and sentenced to death is a brutal and sometimes inhumane thread, but the author  has made this a book a book that you will question

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.

The book took me a while to get through. It's one of those novels that is so beautifully written that you need to go back and re-read sections.  The book actually reminded me a lot of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant, in that you are never quite sure what is going on and you can't trust the narrator, Sheyda.  Another great thing about this novel is that it reads lyrically, like Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See.

"The room vibrated with fatigue, the fatigue of this life, the fatigue of always wanting. It swelled with longing, for answers, for divine ears and for a truth to be out there somewhere."

Through the Sad Wood Our Corpses Will Hang will make you uncomfortable.  It will challenge you as a reader. And I can't think of a better recommendation that I could give a book.

I was intrigued by this novel's poetic title and its almost macabre cover art (the work of Sinan Hussein) and so had high hopes of it before I began to read. I am glad to be able to say tthat I wasn't at all disappointed! Through the Sad Wood Our Corpses Will Hang is a beautiful, unpredictable story of frustrated humanity. Narrated in the first person by imprisoned Sheyda, we see Iranian society as she does - in all its complexities and from the viewpoint of an eternal outsider. She is an unreliable narrator so I found I frequently needed to unravel her truths from The Truth, however I felt I understood her motivations and could easily empathise with the effects of her isolation. Iranian prison routine is barbaric, but it could be said that Sheyda had been preparing for its inhumanity all her life.

Throughout the novel we spend moments with Sheyda during her three-week incarceration before being whirled away in her memories of childhood and adolescence. I loved her vivid descriptions of houses and streets, birds and gardens. The characters around her are so clearly portrayed as to be easily imagined, with the possibility of encountering the Morality Police being a perpetual threat. I believe that Through the Sad Wood Our Corpses Will Hang is Ava Farmehri's first novel and I am eager for her to write more as I love this book so much! Another triumph from Guernica Editions and a novel that I would highly recommend.

as you may conclude from the synopsis, this is not a cheery book to read. Sheyda’s story begins with her imprisonment, with the narrative then flitting between past and present to fill in the gaps, showing the reader her peculiar childhood behaviour as a means of explaining her present state. I was expecting more misery, to be honest; these flashbacks are not as traumatic as you might expect in a book in which the main point is the protagonist’s murder of her own mother. I found the depiction of Sheyda’s relationships with her mother and father really engaging, with her social isolation and strange childhood quirks having obvious impacts on her ability to socialise with others.

More saddening are the sections set in the prison, with Sheyda’s abjection complete as she is ostracised by her fellow prisoners and reduced to the embarrassing behaviours of her childhood. These sections, and the structure of the book overall, reminded me of one of my favourite novels – The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah, in which the protagonist is similarly imprisoned for murder and spends her time reflecting on her past – particularly in its gradual unravelling of the truth. Farmehri’s writing is perfect for the task of revealing Sheyda’s fractured state and the emotion she feels at different parts of her life. Even in relatively uneventful passages, the book is compelling because of how beautifully written it is.

In Conclusion: I was drawn to this book because of its extremely emo title and its author and setting, as I like to read as widely and diversely as possible. It’s a book that subtly draws you in and grabs hold of your emotions without you really noticing until it’s too late

Review to be posted at wildeonmyside.wordpress.com on Oct 1st

Reading this book felt like reading one of the great Russian novels: it’s an exquisitely written and important story. At times, it feels heavy. Sheyda’s narration is dense and does not employ much dialogue. I think these are artistic choices made by the author to support the gravity of the story. "Through the Sad Wood Our Corpses Will Hang” is not just relevant to Iranian culture, it is a glimpse of what our lives are like when we cede control to restrictive forces.

The story takes place in the aftermath Islamic Revolution in Iran. The narrator is born on the day of the new government, “A slate was wiped dirty and a state was robbed clean …. I was born a captive. And now I am not sure anyone is born free.” She tells the story in flashbacks spliced with her current status, in prison and awaiting execution.

The title is taken from a line in Dante’s “Inferno.” Themes of Heaven, Hell, and angels are woven throughout the story. The narrator, Sheyda, describes herself as an angel in several passages: “there, on the sides of my spine, I caught the glimpse of strong white feathers budding out,” and, later, “An itch would gnaw at the sides of my spine … wings would spring to lift me from the shambles of reality and into a heaven of ideas.” 

Similarly, Sheyda often touches on birds in her narrative as metaphor for freedom. Throughout the book, Farmehri’s tense, lyrical prose creates a longing in the reader: 

<blockquote>“My mother and father dug a huge hole in our garden, and buried in it all their books, magazines, and even their own un-Islamic pictures. That’s how memories and knowledge were preserved in my house. They had to be smothered to stay alive. When, due to her I was delivered from the womb of time, from an eternity of darkness to a reality of light, bombs and sunshine, of nightingales that travelled the skies freely, blind to borders while my people perished caged.”</blockquote>

Sheyda is not like other children. She embodies the concept of freedom and democracy struggling to make sense of a totalitarian existence. The new government is embodied by her father. We see him trying to herd her into compliance, like in this exchange at the doctor’s office:

<blockquote>“So what if she’s a little strange? All children have their own way of growing up!” my paediatrician said, offering me a lollipop that I unwrapped and began immediately to suckle on, throwing the orange wrapper on the floor. My father reached down and picked it up. He then gave me a reprimanding gaze which I ignored and replaced with the view of an apple tree outside which stood crucified like the letter T.</blockquote>

I'd like to give this 3.5 stars: it's exceptionally well-crafted, the story is imaginative, but I did not enjoy the experience of reading it. There was no relief from the tension. About a quarter of the way in, I skipped to the final chapter and read backward from there.

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.

A fascinating read, for the insights into the Persian culture (I use that term deliberately, as does the author), into the misery of having XX chromosomes in an Islamic Republic, and into the twists of the chief protagonist’s disturbed brain. Farmehri avoids politics and never preaches, but she is not constrained by political correctness, either, which is enormously refreshing. Her wordsmithing makes me marvel that English is not her first language (I’m assuming, since she was raised in Iran), as she deftly weaves irony, self-deprecation, comedic nuances, and sadness into the first-person narrative. The main character, Sheyda, is not always likable, but she’s always interesting -- with a sang froid that keeps her from being dismissed as yet another victim. Sheyda is only one of several memorable characters, which include her parents, her crush, her psychiatrist, even her boss. 
	I really wanted to give this book 5 stars, but opted for 4 because I wanted more explanations, more theme development. Yes, I understand that the reader is seeing the world through Sheyda’s labyrinthine mind, so I can hardly expect everything to be tied up with a neat bow. But I would have liked more insights into how that mind became warped (genetics/physiology? dysfunctional family dynamics? the theocracy’s pervasive repression?). I would have liked some exploration of the birds that follow Sheyda. As creatures capable of flight, they may symbolize the freedom she craves, but I was left uncertain of that conclusion. And the abrupt ending made me yearn for some greater underscoring (beyond the briefest of hints) of the notion that Sheyda finally finds her freedom. But even those carps have a positive side: Whenever a reader is so engaged in a novel to speculate about its characters, worry about them, and feel sadness at their departure, the author is working magic.

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