It is for books like this that I joined a book club.
Everything Sad Is Untrue: (a true story) by Daniel Nayeri
The elevator pitch for Everything Sad Is Untrue is this: it is the story, told in first person, of middle school-aged Daniel Nayeri, a refugee from Iran, grappling with life in Oklahoma, divorce, and, generally, being different. Told in snippets, memories, flashbacks, and flashforwards, including ancient history, less ancient history, family history, and mythological, Nayeri tells a warm, funny, and sad story.
I don’t know that I would ever have picked it up. It’s Young Adult, and partway through my 11-year-old noted that she was likely to read it for a school book club, as well.
So, not my usual genre. But I’m glad I read it. It is full of insightful observations, told gently in the voice of a young teenager trying to come to grips with who he is, where he is from, and why life is not what it was supposed to be. He tells a lot of stories about his family, drawing on memories and family stories, flawed and incomplete though they are, and perhaps this is part of why it resonates: we all have incomplete memories, or memories that we share with others—family members or friends—that are slightly different, slightly divergent, or just completely different. Memories carry emotion, but they are important, and the stories tell us who and what we are. They are our heritage and what makes us who we are, perhaps even more than our DNA. Nayeri layers story upon story, often told as if he stood in the front of his middle school classroom, and I recognize in his voice that of my own children, remembering family events and trying to convey them to others who were not there, or maybe to see if they match memories. And yet, the contrast between the stories my children might tell and those he shares—a refugee from Iran by way of Italy and living like a fish out of water in Oklahoma—is stark.
I’ve never thought a refugee’s life is easy, and yet, even a rose-colored version of Nayeri’s history is difficult, but the way he tells illuminates, even while it conceals, educates, even while it only is only a myth or brief memory. It opens a world to eyes and minds that only experience small bits of the day-to-day, perhaps expanding their world as far as Persia, one of the oldest empires in the world, and one that most Americans probably couldn’t place on a map. I know mine probably couldn’t.
It’s a beautifully written book, and I eagerly look forward to discussing it with my own children, and maybe with you, too.
Everything Sad Is Untrue: (a true story)
Levine Querido
August 25, 2020
368
A sprawling, evocative, and groundbreaking autobiographical novel told in the unforgettable and hilarious voice of a young Iranian refugee. It is a powerfully layered novel that poses the questions: Who owns the truth? Who speaks it? Who believes it?
"A patchwork story is the shame of the refugee," Nayeri writes early in the novel. In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family's history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel's story of how they became refugees—starting with his mother's vocal embrace of Christianity in a country that made such a thing a capital offense, and continuing through their midnight flight from the secret police, bribing their way onto a plane-to-anywhere. Anywhere becomes the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy, and then finally asylum in the U.S. Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore.
Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights in a hostile classroom, Daniel spins a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE (a true story) is a tale of heartbreak and resilience and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard.
About Daniel