Books - Glimpse into the Iranian closet
Houston author explores harsh life of Persian slave in homoerotic novel
By Robert Ross
Contributing Writer

A love-smitten slave spends his life serving a master who rewards obedience with cruelty, contempt and neglect. That sounds like a steamy plot for an S/M potboiler — which Morteza Baharloo’s novel, “The Quince Seed Potion,” (Bridge Works Publishing, $23.95) is most certainly not.

The Iranian emigre writer turns the master-slave cliche into an epic that not only traces the story of the doomed pair but also follows the tumultuous history of Iran from 1928 to 1981. But why did Baharloo choose to frame an historical novel around the experiences of an illiterate peasant named Sarveali Jokar who knows that he’s gay, refuses to admit it, fantasizes over his master and remains celibate?

“Why not?” the first-time novelist and Houston businessman asks during a phone interview. “Aren’t clandestine desires universal? Couldn’t the same thing happen in Nebraska?”
While “clandestine desires” might pop up in Nebraska, the rest of the story is strictly Iranian.
“The Quince Seed Potion” begins with a graphic account of Sarveali’s birth, which includes the insertion of a chicken’s beak into his rectum to get him breathing.
Orphaned at age five, Sarveali falls into the hands of a greedy uncle who rapes him, then sells him to a wealthy family. Assigned to serve the second son, Sarveali remains steadfast as the family thrives in Iran’s feudal society, declines under the Shah’s rule and disintegrates when the Islamic revolution sweeps the country.
For the author, the rise of the Islamic state in 1978 meant coming to Salt Lake City to live with relatives. Depending again on the extended family, Baharloo moved to Corvallis and majored in pharmacology at Oregon State University. Long interested in writing and the arts, he bowed to his family’s insistence that he learn “something useful.”
After college, Baharloo put his useful degree to work and co-founded Healix Ltd., a Houston-based company that provides pharmaceutical and healthcare services on the national level.
“I love Iran, but I consider myself an Iranian-American,” Baharloo says. “America has been good to me, and now I want to give to both countries.”

These days Baharloo makes frequent trips to Iran where he is restoring rural estates built by his grandfather and great uncles in the 1920s. Although the country has settled down since the turbulent 1970s, he views the present with caution.

“Iran is a schizophrenic clinic whose clinician is manic,” Baharloo says.
Not confident of making the best-seller list in his homeland, Baharloo doubts if “The Quince Seed Potion” would survive strict Iranian censorship. But he thinks it’s possible that an enterprising charlatan might bring out a pirated translation and sell it under the table.

The texture of “The Quince Seed Potion” proves that Baharloo does love his native land and fully grasps its quirks and its qualities. As the narrative progresses at a fast pace, the essence of the exotic setting unfolds to reveal its brilliant colors and striking odors, its rich food and varied landscape, its diverse people ranging from crude peasants to aristocratic landowners.

Critics have described the novel as “homoerotic,” even though Baharloo is not gay. The hapless Sarveali suffers from guilt and shame, according to the author. The guilt, he says, is internal and produces a life tinged with misery, while the shame stems from the fear that his longings will become public — a revelation that could be drastic in Iran.

Current Iranian law views homosexuality as the worst possible sin and the most heinous of crimes. Punishment for various acts, which are precisely described in legalese, includes flogging and death for repeat offenders.

The superstitious Sarveali believes that the juice drawn from the quince seed will cure what he considers unnatural desires. Yet he never asks the mistress of the house for a dose of this panacea that she dispenses so freely. Could it be that he enjoys groveling in unrequited love, wallowing in guilt and shame? The novel forces the reader to answer these questions.

“Sarveali resembles any repressed, closeted gay man in Iran or any other place,” Baharloo insists. “I don’t think anyone should be offended by the way I have treated the subject.”