It is difficult to describe this book in a straightforward way because it isn't a straightforward narrative. It is easy to say this is a fictionalized version of author Daniel Nayeri's childhood as his family flees Iran to become refugees first in Italy before ending up in Oklahoma. But that is not the whole of what this book is.
This is truth wrapped in myth. It is memory wrapped in legend. It is an immigrant's journey to understanding this strange new American world where everything is new, and no one understands the weight of history that affected every moment of his former life in Iran.
There are bullies of every age and size, like the immigration agents who have lost their compassion, the stepfather who abuses Daniel's mother, and the kids at school who ostracise and abuse him. But there are also heroes like Daniel's mother who is unstoppable because she never stops and Mrs. Miller, the English teacher he addresses throughout the book.
Daniel's memories of people in Iran are so few they have gained epic proportions, but he knows the entire history of more distant relatives and weaves the pieces into myth. He is Sheherazade weaving a story so fabulous and so interconnected that we, as his readers, cannot let him go. Highly recommended.
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