A country in chaos, a clash of civilizations, and a family torn asunder. In this searing memoir, Rahimeh Andalibian struggles to make sense of two brutal crimes: a rape, solved by her father, and a murder, 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, The Rose Hotel is a universal story of healing, rebirth after tragedy, and hard-won redemption.

From the Trade Paperback edition.