The Space Between Us

The Space Between Us is a literary novel by Zoya Pirzad. First published in 1997, the book centers on two best friends growing up beside the Caspian Sea, and the prejudices which will later pull one of them in unexpected directions. The book received widespread critical acclaim for its sensitive and poignant portrayal of human emotions. Pirzad, a highly popular Iranian-American novelist specializing in literary fiction, is also the author of Things We Left Unsaid, an international bestseller. She received the prestigious French Chevalier Legion of Honor Award.

The main protagonist, Edmond, is Armenian. He’s very popular in his local community, even though he lives in Iran. He lives a quiet, uneventful Christian life without prejudices. He brings himself up because his parents aren’t around much. He learns to cook for himself, and he makes breakfast every morning for his mother. She doesn’t impose many rules on him, just so long as he stays out of trouble.

His best friend is Tahereh. She’s Muslim, and her father is the local school janitor. They spend all their free time outside of school together. Not everyone in the community condones their friendship, but no one says anything. Tahereh notices a lot of prejudices in the community, of which Edmond seems unaware. For example, women are typically treated as lesser than men, bowing to whatever men want. Sexual abuse is quite common, but women don’t feel able to talk about it.



In the background, Christianity clashes with Islam, although Edmond and Tahereh don’t notice this specifically. It will, however, cause their friendship to fall apart in adulthood. What Pirzad tries to show through the novel is how we’re all far more similar than societal constraints would have us believe. She deliberately keeps the cast of characters very small, and the setting descriptions vague, to make us feel that these characters are all of us, and the book could take place anywhere.

The Space Between Us moves on a few years to when Edmond and Tahereh are adults. They don’t see nearly as much of each other now, but they’re still friends. Edmond has a wife and daughter; he’s content with life. He believes he’s raised his daughter to be open-minded and to treat everyone with respect, and he’s proud of her. However, things change when she declares she’s getting married.

Her chosen husband is not Armenian or Christian. He’s Muslim. This shouldn’t bother Edmond, given his own upbringing, but he really struggles with it. His feelings about her marriage cause a deep rift to grow through the whole family. He loves his daughter, but he doesn’t see how he can stay close to her if she marries this man. He questions where his own prejudices are coming from, but he can’t help it.



To make matters worse, the townsfolk aren’t happy about her choice of husband, either. They don’t think it’s “right”; both Christian and Muslim neighbors isolate them. The locals make nasty remarks and whisper about Edmond for allowing this to happen, and the atmosphere of the whole town changes.

Ultimately, Edmond must choose what he wants—the acceptance of his community or being part of his daughter’s life. He must wrestle with deep conflicts that he didn’t even know existed before. The dilemma results in Edmond falling out with his daughter; they don’t speak for some time. Edmond spends a lot of time wondering where he went wrong, if it’s too late to repair things, and the meaning of community and family.

The narrative then moves on a few years to Edmond’s later life. His wife has died and he lives a lonely, isolated existence. Those neighbors and relations he let himself be influenced by aren’t there for him anymore, and he looks back at the choices he made as a youth with regret.



The Space Between Us reads almost like a journal—not just because it covers such a long space of time, but because we spend a lot of time in Edmond’s head. Through his perceptions, we see the clear generational differences in Iran at the time—that the younger generation is our hope to one day bring everyone together.

Edmond spends a lot of time thinking back to happy moments in his past; his memories are so vivid that he almost believes he’s back there. Edmond has never been able to let go of that one period in his life when he was truly happy—his childhood. With Tahereh as his best friend and little parental influence, Edmond was free to make his own choices—he wishes he had given his daughter the same freedom.

The book is deliberately open-ended because Pirzad writes it as if it’s just one chapter in the complicated history of both this family and Iran itself.