Book description
The revolution is not only inevitable, it is imminent. It is not
only imminent, it is quite imminent. And when the time comes, my
father will lead it.
Sa d Sayrafiezadeh's Iranian-born father and American Jewish
mother had one thing in common: their unshakable conviction that the
workers' revolution was coming. Separated since their son was nine
months old, they each pursued a dream of the perfect socialist
society. Bouncing with his mother between makeshift Pittsburgh
apartments, falling asleep at party meetings, longing for the luxuries
he's taught to despise, Sa d waits for the revolution that never, ever
arrives. 'Soon,' his mother assures him, while his long-absent father
quixotically runs as a socialist candidate for president in an Iran
about to fall under the ayatollahs. Then comes the Iranian hostage
crisis of 1979...
The uproar that follows is the first time Sa d hears the word 'Iran'
in school, and there he is suddenly forced to confront the combustible
stew of his identity: as an American, an Iranian, a Jew, a socialist .
. . and a middle-school kid who loves football and video games.
With a profound gift for capturing the absurd in life, and a deadpan
wisdom that comes from surviving a surreal childhood in the Socialist
Workers Party, Sa d Sayrafiezadeh has crafted an unsentimental, funny,
heartbreaking memoir.
