Sound Museum

September 9, 2024
Missaghi (Trans(re)lating House One) toes the line between dark humor and horror in this transfixing story about a museum of torture in Iran. The narrative takes the form of a monologue by the museum’s unnamed curator during a press preview prior to its grand opening. The curator, who possesses direct knowledge of the exhibit’s material thanks to her previous career as an interrogator, explains the museum’s intention to break the stereotypical perception of torturers as inhuman brutes, arguing that everyone “has a thirst for and inclination toward violence.” She breaks down her decision to hire an all-women staff to combat the patriarchal nature of police and interrogators, as well as her choice to shift the museum’s collection away from images to focus mainly on sound, since modern torture relies less on visual clues and more on psychological efforts. Among the museum’s offerings are livestreams of solitary confinement in cells around the world and archives of audio clips recorded before and after torture sessions. As the curator attempts to justify her own terrible history as a torturer, she harangues the gathered journalists for viewing Iran as an “underdeveloped third-world country” and expressing more sympathy for those suffering in “blond and modern” Ukraine. In the end, the curator is a useful cipher for Missaghi’s satire of Iran’s human rights violations. This is as smart as it is uncompromising.

Starred review from October 1, 2024
A curator explains the origins of a museum dedicated to torture. Structured as the opening address at a press preview for the titular museum, Missaghi's novel takes a chilling look at repressive regimes and the people complicit in their atrocities. The narrator is up front about her time spent as "an interrogator and torturer" and eventually reveals that the museum is intended to be "an educational center through which we can pass on our knowledge and achievements." Given the Iranian setting, the actions of its government loom large, but so does the U.S. government's use of torture, especially in the 21st century. "I'm aware that when it comes to torture, each country, era, situation, and even type of prisoner demands its own set of rules and regulations," the narrator says -- and what follows is an unsettling tour of historical atrocities, as well as the theorists who have tried to understand them. (Tonally, it's pitched somewhere between Ali Smith'sArtful and Roberto Bola�o'sBy Night in Chile.) The narrator's speech abounds with allusions to writers and artists, including Siah Armajani, Tony Cokes, Pauline Oliveros, Hannah Arendt and Darius Rejali. But the most unsettling segment comes when the narrator speaks of Narges Mohammadi, an activist who is currently imprisoned by the Iranian regime. "Part of me also enjoys the constant battle between us," the narrator says, and between this and her discussion of working to make torture a more equitable place when it comes to gender, there's a haunting specificity to her approach. As much as readers might squirm as the narrator uses works opposed to torture to justify torture, the overall effect is one of a horror in which everyone is complicit. A taut, searing tour of modern atrocities.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.