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A WWII Family Saga in Allied-Occupied Iran - an Editorial Review of "The Harmless Necessary Cat"



Book Blurb:


#1 NEW RELEASE IN 4 GENRES:



- MIDDLE EASTERN LITERATURE


- GERMAN LITERATURE


- HISTORICAL RUSSIAN FICTION


- HISTORY OF IRAN



READER VIEWS 5-STAR REVIEW:

In “The Harmless Necessary Cat: A World War II Family Saga in Allied-Occupied Iran,” Sepehr Haddad explores a broader view of the war period, setting his tale in the far-flung city of Tehran, Iran. A capable historian, Sepehr bases his story on real events and real people that arguably shaped the nation of Iran into what it is today.

Not one of those predictable historical fiction tales, this coming-of-age story follows Sohrab Ahanger, a teenage boy from an affluent family whose life is rocked by uncertainty, pain, and turmoil when Allied forces invade his home country, delivering an indelible portrait of love, loss, and war. While the drums of World War II grew louder, nations across the world advanced toward the inevitable conflict that would shake the family fabric to the core.

With a befitting title, “The Harmless Necessary Cat” is a story that lends immediacy and reveals the power behind the resilience of the heart and second chances. I love historical fiction and am always eager to learn something new from books of this genre. Sepehr broadened my scope of knowledge regarding the Second World War and its far-reaching ramifications on nations outside Europe. He captures the emotions, confusion, and ominous atmosphere that engulfed a country once vibrant and full of promise, going ahead to unfurl the hidden agendas and strategic calculations that were at play as the Allied nations coveted Iran’s oil riches.

The book is well-written with the author effectively balancing historical details and a family saga. The oscillation between the protagonist’s life and the lives of other characters and their backstories achieves much and is perhaps the book’s main strength. “The Harmless Necessary Cat” by Sepehr Haddad will have historical fiction fans clamoring for more of the author’s work. It teaches, informs, enlightens, and entertains, ultimately arguing for peace.


THE HARMLESS NECESSARY CAT: A World War II Family Saga in Allied-Occupied Iran



Tehran, 1941. The world is ablaze, but in neutral Iran, life carries on—until British and Russian tanks roll in.


Though much has been written about World War II, little is known of Iran's trials during the conflict. Many remember the Japanese surprise assault on Pearl Harbor, epitomizing deceitful warfare, just as Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's treacherous invasion of the Soviet Union, played a parallel tune of unexpected aggression.


While these events captivated global attention, the Allies launched a sneak attack on Iran, seeking to secure crucial supply lines and curb the growing threat of German influence.


Overnight, the lives of ordinary Iranian families, like the Ahangars, are thrown into chaos. As their world crumbles, the Ahangars must make impossible choices to survive amid the dangerous tides of war.


In this coming-of-age story, young Sohrab Ahangar finds solace in an unlikely bond with his sister-in-law Krista and a growing friendship with Karl, two German expatriates whose community's presence in Iran adds to the rising tension. As Sohrab confronts the disintegration of his once-peaceful life, he uncovers a web of hidden loyalties.


Inspired by a true story, Sepehr Haddad's The Harmless Necessary Cat weaves a powerful narrative of love, loss, and resilience. This mesmerizing tale depicts innocent lives caught in history's crosshairs, offering a poignant testament to the enduring power of hope and perseverance in the face of war.



Author Bio:



Sepehr Haddad, born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Tehran, Iran, is an Iranian-American author and recording artist. His latest historical fiction novel, published in October 2024, is "The Harmless Necessary Cat," a World War II Family Saga set in Allied-occupied Iran.

Sepehr's debut novel, "A Hundred Sweet Promises," won the 2023 American Fiction Awards for Historical Fiction and Historical Romance. It was also the #1 Amazon Bestseller in Middle Eastern literature and Historical Russian fiction and was featured on National Public Radio (NPR).

Sepehr is also a Universal Music Group (UMG) recording artist with the Billboard chart-topping duo "Shahin & Sepehr." He lives in the Washington, D.C., metro area.

Other Awards:

FINALIST- 2022 INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS - Historical Fiction & Literary Fiction

SHORTLIST- 2022 HAWTHORNE PRIZE - Historical Fiction

WINNER OF THE 2021 AMERICAN WRITING AWARDS - Historical Fiction


Editorial Review:


The writer Sepehr Haddad has already made an impressive entrance with his remarkable and extraordinary book 'A Hundred Sweet Promises', for which he was justifiably awarded the HFC Gold Medal for Historical Romance in 2021 and the 2023 Amazon Fiction Award for Historical Fiction and Historical Romance in 2023. The book has subsequently became an Amazon best seller. Now, with 'The Harmless Necessary Cat', Haddad presents to the reading public another truly fine tale.


The book is sub-titled 'inspired by a true story' and, almost immediately, the attentive reader will wish to know how much more the writer knows [and could tell] of the  personalities and events involved; for the book involves many separate strands and currents. On one level the book is quite straightforward to summarise, an illuminating and informative summary of hitherto relatively unknown political events in Iran prior to and during the Second World War and, briefly, immediately afterwards. At the same time, 'The Harmless Necessary Cat' is also a moving account of a family saga, and with all that that involves. It has also, perhaps somewhat sweepingly, been referred to as a 'coming of age' story.  All of these ingredients are undeniably present, but Sepehr Haddad's latest book [and his achievement] are far more than a simple sum of its different parts! Throughout, to give just one example of the book's mesmerising power, there runs an nostalgic sense of longing for a past that, for all its faults, was somehow simpler, purer when set against the brutal realities of the 'realpolitic' of Iran in the nineteen thirties and forties. Frequently this longing is emphasised by beautiful and lyrical quotes from the great Persian poets of a previous age. The narrator, Sohrab Ahangar, tells the reader of the importance of poetry in his life:


''Growing up with an Iranian father, I was used to him recite poetry to convey his advice and sometimes his warnings. In Persian culture, poetry is a medium for expressing deep philosophical and political truths. Fathers often use the verses like Rumi and Hafez to communicate important life lessons, wrapping their guidance in the beauty of lyrical language......Over time, the frequent recitation of verses became a comforting routine. The advice and knowledge embedded in the poems often faded into the background, leaving me to savor the sweetness of the words and the melodic rhymes.....''


This theme remains a constant throughout the book. Young Sohrab, for example, is fascinated by the concept of time. On his thirteenth birthday and shortly before his death his father gives him a fine Russian precision watch, quoting the great poet Omar Khayyam: ''Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.''


To begin, then, with the historical aspect of this novel: Haddad reveals himself to be a more than accomplished historian and the average reader needs to express both admiration and gratitude for the skill with which he depicts a region, a country, a people, most usually unreferred to in all the descriptions of the great and seismic events of the Second World War. Iran and its people has largely been ignored and Haddad goes considerably to redress this balance. Far from being a 'backwater', Iran was in fact a crucial element in the struggle owing to a number of differing factors. Put simply, its geographical location combined with its oil resources made it a vital location for the continuation of the combined British and Soviet [and latterly] American war effort against Nazi Germany and the vital supply routes providing supplies to the Soviets. Similarly, the Germans are anxious to secure a foothold in this strategic and vital centre. Iran, with its vast potential resources and the existence of the 'Trans- Iranian Railway' and 'the Persian Corridor' had been a political cockpit for the 'Great Powers' ever since the early nineteenth century and the outbreak of war increases this tension.


This, in fact, explains the rather curious title of the book. The narrator of the book is Sohrab Ahangar. The book is a moving account of him and his family in these perilous times. His father Mohammad, whom he worships and idolises, is a prosperous importer of iron goods from Russia, a man of quite progressive views [who also imbues his son with a deep love of poetry] and who feels both a nostalgia and a longing for his country's glorious past and a burning anger at the exploitative nature of the European powers, for whom he feels both hatred and distrust [and of Churchill in particular]. With deep anger and resentment he once shows Sohrab a political cartoon from the English magazine 'Punch'[this cartoon with a number of photographs and maps is reproduced in the book] and clearly printed at the height of the nineteenth century 'Great Game' between Russia and the British Empire. The cartoon depicts the Russian Bear and the British Lion toying with the Iranian Cat. The British Lion says to the Russian Bear ''Look here! You can play with his head, and I can play with his tail, and we can both stroke the small of his back.'' The Persian Cat replies; ''I don't remember having been consulted about this.'' In 1907, by the terms of the Anglo-Russian Agreement, Iran was divided into Russian and British spheres of influence, with Russia controlling the north and Britain controlling the south, reducing Iran to a semi-colonial state. This cartoon, in a nutshell, expresses perfectly the anger and frustration of Sohrab's progressive and nationalist father:


''My father mourned the darkness that had fallen upon Iran, a land once vibrant and full of promise. He saw our country now ensnared in despair and hopelessness due to widespread poverty and inequality, leaving many disillusioned with the slow rate of progress.''


Thinking about his father, his anger and frustration, Sohrab is put in mind of a verse from another famous Persian poet, also mourning the past in this new uncertain age:


''Where are your valiant warriors and your priests?

Where are your hunting parties and your feasts?

Where is that warlike mien,

And where are those great armies that destroyed our country's foes?

Count Iran as a ruin, as the lair of lions and leopards!

Look now and despair.''


In contrast to his worshipped father Mohammad, Sohrab finds his own mother Massoumeh cold and remote and unloving. Finding his father's diary after his death, he discovers that he had felt the same, with a secret mistress, dedicating a poem by Hafez to the only woman he truly loved. His mother is devout and a strict Moslem, hating the supposed reforms of the Shah Reza Khan and rarely venturing out of doors in protest. The boy Sohrab feels isolated and alone, relying, in the absence of a mother's love, on that of the two devoted servants; the equally devout Fatima and the important figure of Haidar [whose name means 'lion'], servant to the Ahangar family since a young boy. Sohrab has two elder sisters and a remote older brother, Arash, studying in Europe. It is easy to sense the boy's sense of loneliness! From his father he has inherited a deep love of poetry and a deep loathing of the European powers, the bullies who used coercion to advance their geopolitical ambitions. In pace with the growing fortunes of the family, they move from provincial Qazvir to Tehran in 1937.


Young Sohrab's entire existence is overturned by the sudden death from pneumonia of his father in 1938. Sohrab is just thirteen: ''His death left a deep void in my life. The shock hit me like a lightning bolt, sudden and jarring. One day he was there, his larger-than-life presence filling our house, and the next, silence. A suffocating silence that consumed everything....'' In widowhood, his mother becomes an even more remote figure: ''I felt I had lost both my parents - one to the clutches of death and the other to the cold embrace of indifference.''  His mother embarks upon a holy pilgrimage to Mecca. Upon her return she insists on no longer being referred to as Massoumeh or mother, but rather as 'Hajieh Khanoom'' - one who has made the holy journey. The journey has fatally weakens her, for she has contracted cholera.


Sohrab's brother Arash returns from Europe to take over the family business, and into the gloom of this void he brings his German bride Krista. Swiftly, in replacement to his own ailing and withdrawn mother, she brings a new sense of gaiety and life to the house, increasingly taking a vital role in Sohrab's life. His mother weakens and finally dies and Sohrab discovers an 'inability to grieve her loss'. Krista instead has transformed his life. The house is transformed, modernised, 'europeanised'. Jazz is played and there is a succession of elegant dinner parties full of witty and entertaining people. Krista becomes fluent in German to an extraordinary degree and reveals a true talent as a cook. She also introduces Sohrab for the first time to comparative religion, for Krista is a devout Christian. This, too, is a revelation:


''Growing up, I viewed God as a stern judge, His wrath eclipsing his mercy, leaving me more fearful than comforted. That is why Krista's relationship with God was foreign to me. I was fascinated that she spoke as if she had a friendship with Him. Her perspective was different and warmer. Krista saw him more as a close confidant, a friend to confide in.''


In the immediate period before the War fully reached Iran, and in the tense period before the actual Anglo-Soviet military occupation of Iran, the German influence in Iran was growing and both Iranians and Germans were feeling a greater affinity with each other. Germans were arriving in the country in greater numbers and by 1939 Germany had become Iran's biggest trading partner. The Ahangar Tehran family home becomes a hub for the growing German community and a frequent visitor is the engineer Franz Mayer, in business in Iran and who is accompanied by his son Karl, with whom Sohrab forms a very close friendship. Apart from his father, Krista, the German boy Karl and the worthy and faithful servant Haidar are the most important people in Sohrab's life. The engineer Mayer is an elegant figure, tall, handsome and blonde, with a distinguished streak of silver. Everybody is attracted to him and very soon the innocent young Sohrab detects more than a hint of mere friendship between the engineer and his idolised Krista.


With 'Operation Barbarossa' - the German invasion of Russia in June 1941 - matters came to a head. Conscious of the need to both protect the precious oil fields and the vital supply route of the Trans Iranian Railway, the Soviets and the British actually commence an actual military occupation of Iran. With actual bombing of Iranian cities and the presence of armed troops on the ground, Shah Reza Ali ordered his own troops to stand down in August of that year. Anti- allied and pro-German sentiments increased dramatically. To young Sohrab, heavily influenced by the memory of his father, the situation seemed quite clear. And had not the Nazi Party, in 1936, declared the Iranians to be fellow Aryans?


''The advent of World War II brought about a wave of frustration that swept through Iran, leading many to lean towards supporting the German cause. Oblivious to the heinous acts committed by the Nazis, they were captivated by a unique aspect of German ideology - the notion that Iranians were considered Aryan people, inheritors of an ancient culture that once birthed the first world Empire.''


Sohrab's best and closest friend Karl, expresses his grave concern, warning him not to place too great a trust and reliance in Germany, or in its actions and motives. The four years of war that follow are to disrupt and destroy the previously comfortable and prosperous life of Sohrab and of his family and those that he loves and trusts the most and it certainly is not the purpose of this review to detail in too great a depth the extent of the traumatic changes that this war brought about. It is for the readers of this remarkable book to discover this for themselves; something which this reviewer urges them to do, for the account of the war years is a gripping account of espionage, betrayal and treachery, shattered lives and lost loves, the total eclipse of the Ahangar family business, personal sacrifice and the ever increasing disillusionment of Sohrab Ahangar.


The fate of Iran and of Iranians in the Second World War is a rarely told story, and one which the author Sepehr Haddad describes splendidly; a  stark period of crippling inflation [reaching 500% at one stage], starvation, famine, typhus and broken dreams. ''And so it went, a land rich in history now impoverished by circumstance, a people caught in the churn of greater powers, their suffering etched into the lines of hungry faces, their lament drained out by the clamour of war.'' The long suffering British army officer, himself passionately devoted to Persian culture, appointed to run down and destroy the German spy network masterminded by the ever elusive, enigmatic and mysterious master spy, 'Ravenshadow', reflects upon the situation and calls to mind a verse from the magnificent poet Omar Khayyam:


''The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,

Moves on: Nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line;

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.''


At the head of every Chapter, Sepehr Haddad includes an apt and apposite quotation. To mark the end of the War, he quotes the Japanese writer  Haruki Marakami: ''When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what the storm is all about.'' The end of hostilities brings immense changes to both Iran and Sohrab. The allies begin to militarily evacuate the country and Krista is now pregnant after what can only be described as a 'marriage of convenience to the family's chief creditor, Haj Mirza Ali Khan, who has saved her from the attention of the Soviets. He it is who negotiates for Sohrab to commence a new life, studying in America. Iran is flooded with a wave of Soviet released Polish refuges, as many as 100.000. One of these is the beautiful Polish girl Gabriela who is taken on as nanny for the new baby. Gabriela, with whom Sohrab is desperately in unrequited love, further adds to Sohrab's ever expanding understanding of matters and his world view. She quotes to him from the American philosopher, Henry David Thoreau [a favourite of her dead father]; a quote eerily reminiscent of the quote used by Sohrab's own father when he had given him the watch for his thirteenth birthday:


''However mean your life is, meet it and love it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you think. The fault-finder will find faults even in Paradise. Have your life, difficult as it is..... You must live in the present, launch yourself in every wave, find your eternity in each moment.''


This, then, is the wistful and promising end of ''The harmless Necessary Cat'' by Sepehr Haddad. The book is a curious and beguiling blend of poetry and philosophy combined with sharp and perceptive historical analysis and a moving account of a family in crisis, in peace and in war. It is a powerful and moving book of the irretrievable changes that occur in the life of Sohrab Ahangar.


*****


“The Harmless Necessary Cat” by Sepehr Haddad receives five stars and the “Highly Recommended” award of excellence from The Historical Fiction Company


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