The New York Times Book Review - Elliot Ackerman
…as much a meditation on time and memory as it is a book about war…Abdoh skillfully captures combat's intrinsic absurdity…For many Americans, the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have become abstractions, separated from our lives by geographic as well as psychic boundaries. Abdoh collapses these boundaries, presenting a disjointed reality in which war and everyday life are inextricably entwined…Out of Mesopotamia [shines] a brilliant, feverish light on the nature of not only modern war but all war, and even of life itself.
Publishers Weekly
★ 07/20/2020
Abdoh (Tehran at Twilight) delivers a superb pressure cooker of a novel centered on Saleh, a middle-aged Iranian journalist with one bum eye who splits his time between Tehran and covering the war on ISIS. In Tehran, he pulls in cushy art review gigs while navigating the cutthroat, overtly patriotic TV industry, where his script ideas are often compromised or stolen; while on the front line in Iraq and Syria, he embeds with coalition soldiers and mourns those who die in battle. Saleh is surrounded by a web of characters in both halves of his life, among them a security handler, H, who tests Saleh’s loyalty and sends him on a clandestine mission involving a text by Marcel Proust, and Atia, a friend who tries to recruit Saleh for a new magazine. When fellow journalist Saeed finds him in Iraq, Saeed insists Saleh is sabotaging their careers by protecting a woman known as Zahra the Beheader, who took revenge on the men who killed her family, and whose story the British media wants to buy from them. Meanwhile, aging artist Miss Homa, tired of life, asks Saleh to assist in her suicide. In chapters that shuffle Saleh around Syria and Iraq, Abdoh vibrantly illustrates the futilities and dangers of proxy conflict. As Saleh juggles his various objectives and dilemmas, he confronts his own desire for meaning (“In this war, nothing—nothing at all—made sense”). Abdoh brilliantly fuses the confusions of combat and modern life to produce an unforgettable novel. This is one of the best works of literature on the war against ISIS to date. (Sept.)
The Markaz Review
"Abdoh takes heavy subjects and themes and presents them with a deft, light hand . . . Out of Mesopotamia nearly produces an out of body reading experience as it transports the reader to the war zones the author toured, while capturing the inherent beauty and strangeness present in both war and art."
Midwest Book Review
"An inherently fascinating read that echoes the devastated and devastating real world conditions of so many war torn populations in the Middle East, Out Of Mesopotamia by Salar Abdoh is one of those novels that will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf."
Editors' Choice New York Times Book Review
"Abdoh’s powerful novel follows an Iranian war reporter who is torn between his wearying job on the front lines and a civilian existence that he finds increasingly alienating. The book is as much a reflection on memory and art as it is a war story, and Abdoh’s writing captures beautifully the absurdity of both the battlefield and modern life."
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges
"One of a handful of great modern war novels . . . These wars will not end until we look at what we are doing and what we have done. Abdoh’s novel lifts the veil on the murderous insanity."
Booklist
"[A] searing, poetic, and morally authentic account of contemporary conflict. Abdoh eloquently depicts the absurdity of war, employing darkly comic interludes while also showing the devastating brutality . . . A devastatingly profound catch-22 of modern conflict."
Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
"Profound . . . With first-hand experience with militias in Iraq and Syria, Abdoh travels between war and peace in his novel, picking up on the in-between moments, the ones that are not glorified and where suffering is silent."
Literary Hub
"If history is written by the victors then most good war novels are written by those accustomed to losing, and Out of Mesopotamia calls to mind the grim brilliance of Czech writers like Bohumil Hrabal and Jaroslav Hasek—which is to say it is really fucking funny. And maybe this is at the heart of Abdoh’s genius, the art and instinct for getting very close to the darkest corners of humanity without succumbing to the despair that dwells therein."
BOMB Magazine
"An unprecedented novel, one that captures the brutality, absurdity and, yes, beauty of war from the grounded perspective of an Iranian man straddling multiple worlds."
From the Publisher
One of The Margins' 100 Essential Books by Iranian Writers
• One of Vulture's Fall 2020 Best New Books
• One of Publishers Weekly's Big Indie Books of Fall 2020 and a Best Book of the Year
• A Chicago Review of Books Must-Read Book of September 2020
"[A] superb pressure cooker of a novel . . . Abdoh brilliantly fuses the confusions of combat and modern life to produce an unforgettable novel. This is one of the best works of literature on the war against ISIS to date."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review, book of the week
"Abdoh explores the lives behind the war-torn headlines in a way that captures the full humanity of the participants. Channeling a bit of Tim O'Brien and a good deal of Joseph Heller, he has written the best novel to date on the Middle East's ceaseless wars." —Library Journal, starred review
"[A] searing, poetic, and morally authentic account of contemporary conflict. Abdoh eloquently depicts the absurdity of war, employing darkly comic interludes while also showing the devastating brutality." —Booklist
“Salar Abdoh defies all formulaic constructions . . . The result is an unblinking look at the realities of war and the impossibility of ever leaving war behind . . . Out of Mesopotamia provides a wrenching examination of war and of the way humanity can’t ever manage to be done with violent conflict.”
—Shelf Awareness
"One of a handful of great modern war novels . . . These wars will not end until we look at what we are doing and what we have done. Abdoh's novel lifts the veil on the murderous insanity."
—Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist "Out of Mesopotamia is a brutally realistic look at war and love and fear and everything else that humans do. The writing is impossibly good. The characters aren't characters at all—they seem to have emerged fully formed from the blood-soaked soil of Syria and Iraq. And they rise up to live out a story that is as old as history and yet somehow could only have happened today. I'm stunned by how good this book is."
—Sebastian Junger, author of Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
"Transcendent." —Daily Beast
"[A]n unprecedented novel, one that captures the brutality, absurdity and, yes, beauty of war from the grounded perspective of an Iranian man straddling multiple worlds." —BOMB
"If history is written by the victors than most good war novels are written by those accustomed to losing, and Out of Mesopotamia calls to mind the grim brilliance of Czech writers like Bohumil Hrabal and Jaroslav Hasek—which is to say it is really fucking funny. And maybe this is at the heart of Abdoh's genius, the art and instinct for getting very close to the darkest corners of humanity without succumbing to the despair that dwells therein." —Literary Hub, Jonny Diamond's Favorite Book of 2020
"[P]rofound . . . With first-hand experience with militias in Iraq and Syria, Abdoh travels between war and peace in his novel, picking up on the in-between moments, the ones that are not glorified and where suffering is silent." —Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
Library Journal
★ 09/01/2020
Saleh is a middle-aged art critic for a Tehran newspaper whose life has grown meaningless. Approaching the world with a cynicism verging on despair and looking for renewed purpose, he joins up with a Shia militia fighting ISIS, chronicling the lives of "martyred" soldiers and sometimes engaging in the action. He discovers something he needs in the bravery of his comrades (however foolish it may sometimes be), the idealism of the soon-to-be martyrs, and even the boredom and utter absurdity of his ragtag military life. While on the front, he finds a volume of Proust—subversive literature in Iran—and buries it where he is stationed. When it's discovered, word gets back to his government handler H., arousing more suspicion about his loyalty even as H. demands that he write a patriotic drama for state TV. If that's not enough, Atia, the woman he loves, breaks his heart by marrying their boss. VERDICT Abdoh (Tehran at Twilight) explores the lives behind the war-torn headlines in a way that captures the full humanity of the participants. Channeling a bit of Tim O'Brien and a good deal of Joseph Heller, he has written the best novel to date on the Middle East's ceaseless wars.—Lawrence Rungren, Andover, MA
DECEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
Narrator Sean Rohani becomes Saleh, a world-weary Iranian journalist who cannot stop writing about the Syrian conflict. Rohani captures the surreal nature of violence in a dry, somber voice that comes to embody the incessant nature of ongoing war. His delivery is easy on the ears as he streams details of unrest, which contrast with the sounds of peace when Saleh returns to civilian life in Tehran. Listeners have a front-row seat to the effects of PTSD as Saleh tries to assimilate into normal life. Rohani gives a consistent performance, rattling off Saleh's observations like a long list of diary entries. If we are moved to empathy, it is because author and narrator capture the personal and political costs of bearing witness. M.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
