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A Novel
Grove Press
September 2008
On Sale: September 1, 2008
416 pages ISBN: 0802143865 EAN: 9780802143860 Paperback (reprint)
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Fiction
Compared by Danzy Senna to "the young Philip Roth" for her
"lashing, dark humor tinged with deep melancholy,"
Porochista Khakpour is one of her generation's most
outrageously gifted new talents. Sons and Other Flammable
Objects is at once a comedy and a tragedy, a family history,
and a modern coming-of-age story with a distinctly timeless
resonance. Growing up, Xerxes Adam is painfully aware that he is
different¡ªwith an understanding of his Iranian heritage
that vacillates from typical teenage embarrassment to
something so tragic it can barely be spoken. His father,
Darius, obsesses over his sense of exile, and fantasizes
about a nonexistent daughter he can relate to better than
his living son; Xerxes' mother changes her name and tries to
make friends; but neither of them can help their son make
sense of the terrifying, violent last moments in a homeland
he barely remembers. As he grows into manhood and moves to
New York, his major goal in life is to completely separate
from his parents, but when he meets a beautiful half-Iranian
girl on the roof of his building after New York's own
terrifying and violent catastrophe strikes, it seems Iran
will not let Xerxes go.
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