Everything Sad is Untrue

Everything Sad is Untrue, by Daniel Nayeri, begins like this: “All Persians are liars and lying is a sin.” It’s a fitting first sentence for a memoir that perpetually surprises, entertains, and challenges its reader.

Nayeri weaves the tales of his childhood in the style of 1001 Nights, the collection of ancient Middle Eastern tales told by the master of cliff-hangers, Scheherazade. Except that Nayeri’s narrator is a tween version of himself, trying to weave his tales- somewhat clumsily- for the enlightenment of his bewildered classmates in Edmond, Oklahoma. 

Let me sum up the basics, in a much less exciting style than Nayeri. When Daniel was a young boy, he was called Khosrou and he enjoyed a comfortable life in Iran (with live birds in a glass room in the middle of his house). His father was a successful dentist (with a smuggling business on the side), and his mother was a respected doctor. Khosrou made up his own language; he ate chocolate bars and stashed surplus chocolate bars in secret compartments in his toys. When his mother encountered Christianity on a trip to England, and then converted, the Nayeri family’s lives turned upside down. Khosrou’s mother’s new-found religion was forbidden, especially for a family with a royal Muslim ancestry. The Iranian government issued a “fatwa,” or a law declaring her execution. So Khosrou and his mother and sister fled Iran (Khosrou’s father opted to start over with another woman), and eventually found asylum in Edmond, Oklahoma, aka Very Much Not Iran. Khosrou was unceremoniously “rebranded” with the American-friendly name Daniel, and the family lived in poverty instead of luxury. Daniel’s mother could no longer practice as a doctor, as her credentials were not accepted in the US; she also married an Iranian American man named Ray, who abused her.

The book reflects on the impact of all of these changes on its narrator, Daniel. He grasps at foggy memories of his grandparents and his life back in Iran. He finds strategies for coping with, and avoiding when possible, the bullies at his school and in his apartment complex.  He tries to hide his family’s poorness from his friend, and he cultivates a crush on Kelly J. He marvels at his mother’s strength and tenacity, and the incredible fact that she gave up a comfortable life with stability and security in order to boldly proclaim her new Christian faith. 

When you read Everything Sad is Untrue, prepare for a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. You will definitely laugh, and you’ll probably cry, too. Nayeri’s writing style is childlike in that it is blunt: he talks about the joy of discovering Pringles for the first time, the fear and confusion of losing his father and gaining a stepdad who hits and shoves his mom, the embarrassment of trying to poop at his friend’s house when he’s used to doing it Iranian style, and there’s even some rumination on “sexing.” But do not think for a moment that this is a silly or gratuitous book: you will find profound truths in Nayeri’s thoughts, and because of that youthful style of storytelling, they will not come across as preachy, didactic, or egotistical. For instance, when Nayeri talks about whether his mother Sima is being faithful or simply crazy in giving up everything (“she could have lived quietly and saved everyone the heartaches that would come”), he talks about how one cannot really believe something without going 100%, all the way. He says:

“...the only way to stop believing something is to deny it yourself. To hide it. To act as if it hasn’t changed your life. 

Another way to say it is that everybody is dying and going to die of something. And if you’re not spending your life on the stuff you believe, then what are you even doing? What is the point of the whole thing?”

So, this book is simultaneously goofy and heavy (which is a difficult balance to find, and Nayeri does it extremely well). Given that it contains difficult subject matter, some swearing, more than a little violence, and meaty thoughts to chew on, what is an appropriate audience? I’ve concluded that it will really depend on the context of the child in consideration. For a child who is attending public school or a certain type of private school, I’d say this could be an important book to read by 10 to 12 years of age. I’m personally a product of the public school system (in the 80s and 90s), and I found myself remembering the kids in school whose food and family customs seemed so weird to me, who were born in places I knew very little about. Reading a book like Everything Sad is Untrue would certainly have made me a more empathetic and curious classmate for them. (And reading about kids doing and saying mean things, or even dumb things like exploding their own tongue, would not have been that jarring.) However, kids who have not experienced these settings, or kids who are generally sensitive to depictions of violence, tragedy, or bullying, should probably wait until their teen years to read this book. Ultimately, though, I’d highly recommend it as a moving and funny story of a modern immigrant family with some Christian undertones. For those who may be reluctant to read something that is overtly Christian, I’d say that Nayeri handles this topic fairly dispassionately, and without trying to persuade or convert. At one point he contemplates the types of gods that people pursue, and the two extremes that can be dangerous:

“A god who listens is love.

A god who speaks is law.

At their worst, the people who want a god who listens are self-centered. They just want to live in the land of do-as-you-please. And the ones who want a god who speaks are cruel. They just want laws and justice to crush everything.

I don’t have an answer for you. This is the kind of thing you live your whole life thinking about probably.

Love is empty without justice.

Justice is cruel without love.”

Like life itself, Everything Sad is Untrue is messy, and funny, and heartbreaking, and scary, and beautiful.