This is my latest book club book, which (I am embarrased to say), I already had in my pile.
As per my previous post, I am going to talk about chapter 1 – heaps of spoilers.
There are two quotes before the book starts
I googled Forugh Farrokhzad she was a poet and film maker who died when she was 32 in a car accident. She was divorced and had little access to her son (apparently because of all of her affairs). A strong feminist voice.
and
I believe Footsteps in the Dark is an academic text, the subtitle is The Hidden Histories of Popular Music.
Ok, on to chapter 1.
Chapter 1 (December 1981 New York)
We have a narrator – Ellie. She’s living in New York selling perfume (one of those people who want to squirt you as you walk through a department store).
I am thinking this chapter might be a bit of a framing device.
Ellie is from Iran. Her husband is an academic and they left Iran before the revolution. She had a friend, Homa, and it appears that Ellie did something terrible to her and they have been estranged for 17 years.
Out of the blue a letter arrives from Homa – breezy and full of news, but giving her phone number and requesting and urgent call.
Will Ellie call her?
On the way to catch the train home after work, Ellie gives her slice of pizza and all of her cash to an old beggar woman. Why is this in the book? Are we meant to see Ellie in a kind light (so we think better of her when we know what she did)
The bitter, sour notes would forever remind me of one long-ago night in Iran. The night when an act of betrayal changed the entire course of my friendship with Homa and both of our lives.
At the end of my shift, I removed my name pin, put it in the counter drawer, then pulled on my warm camel coat and striped leg warmers
I had to put the leg warmer one in, so eighties.