everything sad is untrue by daniel nayeri

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.

Everything sad is untrue by daniel nayeri