And so, you know, it does - in the early goings - tell the story of Ray and his own childhood of extreme violence as well. a big theme in the book is this idea of, what you take in in life as a child, and what you choose to produce. a big theme in the book is this idea of, what you take in in life as a child, and what you choose to produce.Īnd. And in order for them to be imparted to me by Ray, that was the cost of having him around. And so I thought my mom was sort of enduring a lot of this because then some lessons of manhood had to be imparted to me. And this was something, my sister would tell me this. And, you know, Daniel needed a father figure. You know, I thought there was such a strong conception that we had lost our father. On the abuse his mother suffered at the hands of his stepfather, Ray, and how he (and book-Daniel felt about it)įor the longest time growing up, I thought Ray was my fault. And so we ended up having to fend for ourselves a little bit. She was a doctor in Iran, but was stripped of that when we came to the United States, and so took a lot of menial labor jobs. Unfortunately, when you're a refugee in a place that's a little bit more homogeneous, I think the first question you end up getting asked over and over again is, what are you doing here? And you end up having to tell the story over and over again, which is sort of where my love of storytelling began. I think the first question you end up getting asked over and over again is, what are you doing here? And you end up having to tell the story over and over again, which is sort of where my love of storytelling began. She took us to a grocery store, and then to Toys R Us, and I have never seen - to this day, I'm chasing that high of shelf after shelf of peanut butter and toys. "The discovery of Pringles! The first day in America was shocking. And I could not believe that America had chips like this," Nayeri says. I was very jet-lagged, and on the plate these chips I had never seen before, and they were all the same shape, and they nested into one another. "The very first morning, we woke up and the wonderful woman who had taken us in had served sandwiches. Nayeri says the thing that really struck him about America when he first arrived was - potato chips. And these indignities at school are actually some of the lighter moments in a memoir that explores what it feels like to part ways with your home country, and with your father. The protagonist - called Daniel - is Iranian refugee who lives with his mother and sister, and because he's the only Persian student his classmates know, he's the butt of jokes, the target of bullies, and he concocts layers of strategies to escape their abuse. This is a novel, yes, but it's also the story of Nayeri's childhood in Oklahoma.
My mom says it's true, but only because everyone has sinned and needs God to save them. Miller's class think, but I'm the only Persian they've ever met, so I don't know where they got that idea.