Female Life on Planet Earth by Laleh Khadivi review – a mother’s secret past in the Iranian revolution

Laleh Khadivi’s novel follows Heti, an Iranian-American mother in Los Angeles, after her own mother dies and photographs arrive suggesting she may have enforced the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The discovery unsettles Heti’s memories and prompts questions about grief, family secrets and what children inherit from their parents.

The story unfolds through vignettes across a year, moving between Heti’s suburban life and her attempts to understand her mother’s possible past. The reviewer says Khadivi is more interested in Heti’s conflicted response than in exploring the revolution’s political history, and describes the novel’s shifts between comedy and cosmic reflection as sometimes uneven.