reviews
“All of Khakpour’s strengths are on display here: punchy conversation, vivid detail, sharp humor. . .Khakpour brings her characters vividly to life; their flaws and feints at intimacy feel poignantly real, and their journeys generate real suspense. . .they are also imbued with a genuine humanity that wins our affection.”
—The Sunday New York Times Book Review
“Khakpour explores ethnicity, nationalism, and post-9/11 fear—well-worn themes that are far less compelling than the exuberant originality of her style. The characters burst from the page in fiery exchanges, while their chaotic inner lives are conveyed with witty precision. . . Khakpour’s comic sense of familial tensions—particularly father-son enmity—is infectious.”
—The New Yorker
“Khakpour’s tale is lyrical and wise and funny, in a way that sometimes reminded me of the terrific British novelist Zadie Smith.”
—Kurt Andersen, Studio 360 (NPR)
“Khakpour expertly captures the culture clash between generations of immigrant families as well as the questions about identity and home that are common themes in immigrant novels. She brings a fresh perspective and style to the genre, exploring themes of escape and being lost and found.”
—The Chicago Tribune
“Poignant and amusing . . . shows ways that odd pieces of the past govern our present lives more than we would like.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle
“Porochista Khakpour’s debut novel signals the arrival of a dazzling stylist. Sons and Other Flammable Objects trumps fashionable memoirs of Iran with a jazzy fictional narrative.”
—The Daily Star
“Khakpour’s frequently hilarious debut novel focuses on a disintegrating Iranian family in post–September 11 America, but dodges the pitfalls that setup could entail. Her characters are victims not of xenophobia or ignorance but of their own weaknesses, and she deftly avoids disaster-bred pathos or epiphanies. . Full-tilt and engrossing.”
—TimeOut Chicago
“Entirely impressive . . it also gallops over fresh ground in its examination of personal and political trauma in the ‘age of terrorism.’ . . a smart and sensitive novel.”
-Radar magazine
“Like Philip Roth, except from Tehran not Newark!”
—Paper magazine, October Book of the Month
“Khakpour builds her luminously intelligent debut around the travails of an Iranian-American family caught in the feverish and paranoid currents immediately after 9/11. . . . Khakpour is an elegant writer, and she imparts a perfect sense of the ironies of being Persian in America.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Sometimes comic and sometimes poignant . . . Khakpour displays a barbed, appealing sensibility and a trenchant wit.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“While there is no shortage of fiction that deals with the subjects of racial and cultural identity, Khakpour’s first novel refuses to oversimplify these issues fro the sake of a smoother narrative. An incredibly complex book, it acknowledges that navigating the demands of multiple cultures is anything but a tidy process.”
—Library Journal
“Sons and Other Flammable Objects is the first great Iranian-American novel, breathless and overwhelmingly good.”
—parsarts.com
“Reading [Khakpour's] work is like going joyriding down a rocky mountainside. She splits words open and looks for their multiplicity of meanings. She translates words and customs from the Farsi with both eerie and hilarious effects. It’s thrilling and demanding work, but Khakpour makes it all worth it”
—Sycamore Review
“Ultimately, Sons does something entirely new in the Iranian literary landscape: it is a sophisticated treatment of the life and problems of one Iranian immigrant family which manages to also be universal. Khakpour is a master of showing all the nuances of immigrant life, and she is especially talented at depicting the sort of nameless longing for a homeland that second-generation Iranians experience. The solution, Khakpour knows, will not be found in the pomegranate trees, santur music, and the otherwise exoticized Iran of their (our) forbears, an Iran that is more a wispy dream than reality. Rather, the answer lies in coming to grips with the need to forge new identities and homelands, while making peace with Iranian roots.”
—MELUS journal
“Khakpour’s biting humor, delightfully knowing asides, and careful digging into the interior worlds of two equally stubborn men give the novel an intelligence and a crisp charm that is welcome and quite unexpected in such weighty matters. . . a brilliant, witty, knowing tale.”
—The Quarterly Conversation
“A debut that gave me a good shaking by the lapels and left me with a very happy smirk on my face. You guys better start reading her now, she’s going to lead the pack for a while.”
—Litpark.com