Sons and Other Flammable Objects

by Porochista Khakpour

The Iranian-American author’s award-winning debut examines an immigrant’s coming of age with “punchy conversation, vivid detail [and] sharp humor” (The New York Times Book Review).   Growing up in the United States, Xerxes Adam’s understanding of his Iranian heritage vacillates from typical teenage embarrassment to something so tragic it can barely be spoken. His father, Darius, is obsessed with his own exile, and fantasizes about a nonexistent daughter he can relate to better than his living son. His mother changes her name and tries to make friends. But neither of them helps Xerxes make sense of the terrifying, violent last moments in a homeland he barely remembers. As Xerxes grows up and moves to New York City, his major goal in life is to completely separate from his parents. But after the attacks of September 11th change New York forever, and Xerxes meets a beautiful half-Iranian girl on the roof of his building, he begins to realize that his heritage will never let him go. Winner of the California Book Award Silver Medal in First Fiction, Sons and Other Flammable Objects is a sweeping, lyrical tale of suffering, redemption, and the role of memory in making peace with our worlds.  A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice

Genres: Fiction, Iran, Novels, Middle East, Asian American, Contemporary, International

385 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 10, 2007

About the author

Porochista Khakpour is the author of the memoir Sick (Harper Perennial, June 2018)—a “Most Anticipated Book of 2018,” according to HuffPost, Bustle, Bitch, Nylon, Volume1 Brooklyn, The Rumpus, and more. She also authored the novels The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, 2014)—a 2014 "Best Book of the Year" according to NPR, Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Popmatters, Electric Literature, and more — and Sons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove, 2007)—the 2007 California Book Award winner in “First Fiction,” a Chicago Tribune’s “Fall’s Best,” and a New York Times “Editor’s Choice.” Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera America, Bookforum, Slate, Salon, Spin, CNN, The Daily Beast, Elle, and many other publications around the world. She’s had fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the University of Leipzig (Picador Guest Professorship), Yaddo, Ucross, and Northwestern University’s Academy for Alternative Journalism, among others. She has taught creative writing and literature at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, Bard College, Sarah Lawrence College, Wesleyan University, Bucknell University, and many other schools across the country. Currently, she is guest faculty at VCFA and Stonecoast's MFA programs as well as Contributing Editor at The Evergreen Review and The Offing. Born in Tehran and raised in the Los Angeles area, she lives in New York City’s Harlem.

Reviews

[Oriana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a random used-bookstore find, which can be great or still. I mean, I hate hate hate the hype machine, I hate manufactured buzz, I hate the assumption that large print runs = large fan base = a necessarily superior book. But sometimes? The books that don't get the buzz and the fame really just aren't as good. And this is one of them.

The book started out very impressive. Porochista's got a lovely way with words, with long, twisty, metaphor-heavy sentences. She creates a very good sense of place. There are only a few characters, and they're very developed. It's mainly just a family: husband wife kid, Iranian refugees in LA. Everything that happens has a lot of gravitas, all these background and foreground stories where you know she worked really hard to sculpt and craft them so they would be complex and shiny and resonant.

But um—and this is a criticism I would not have expected from myself—that shit becomes really tiresome after a couple hundred pages. The sentences just get longer and longer, and less and less comprehensible if you're not giving 100% concentration. And the dramatic buildup is just way overdone after a while, especially because she does this really weird thing where she overexplains and overexpositions all this buildup to a mini-climax, detailing everyone's mental processes before and during a conversation, going on and on about the symbolism and people's histories and what led them to the point where they are sitting in this specific place having this specific conversation where everything is about to go horribly wrong... it's coming... the horribly wrong thing... the conversation is given in snippets... interspersed with yet more exposition and thought and history... wait... we're almost to the point where the Bad Thing gets said... and lots more bad things will happen as a result of this, and let me tell you something about them and that... no but really, they're opening their mouths... the Bad Thing is coming in just like a microsecond...

And then a section break, and we are in a different city watching someone else do something totally different. Which I guess is a tactic for like suspense writers? But this is literary fiction, and the "Bad Thing" is like a two-minute exchange between a father and a son, and it's going to be fifty more pages until I find out what was actually said? That is so fucking annoying. And on some of those mini-climaxes she doesn't actually ever detail the Bad Thing, or she kind of hints at it, but then it's hard for me to even get why the Bad Thing is so bad actually.

Shit, I have to leave. More later!

Okay. But before I continue bashing poor Porochista, I have to say another thing that I'm surprised to hear myself admit: this is the very first literary treatment of September 11th that has not made me enraged. Let me see if I can explain why that is. First of all, it's not screamed about on the back cover, nor is it at treated like it's the main focus of the book, nor is it lazily inserted as a shorthand for "a certain time and place and all the feelings that go along with that," nor is it a bid for sympathy or seriousness on the part of an author who deserves neither. Instead, it is seamlessly and RELEVANTLY woven into the story -- a story, let me say again, of a (by this point) twenty-something Iranian-born guy living in New York whose life is shitty and uncertain and miserable, and who has not spoken to his father (who lives in California still) in like five years, or his mother in over a year. So this is an important plot device, because of course only the most heartless kid would not call his parents to tell them that he's alive on the afternoon of September 11th, which of course allows the story to move on from talking and thinking about not talking into thinking about and actually talking again. So: props for that.

But all the same, meh. This is not a terrific book. It's too long, it's too wordy, and despite all the over-description, I still never really felt like I understood the characters, who all did a lot of strange and wrong things that I would not have expected. None of them are really very sympathetic or likable. Things are not resolved, for all that they are exhaustively described.

Oh and? I just now noticed that the cover endorsement is from Joshua Ferris. I should have fucking known.

[Tes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a hard time caring for any of the characters in this book. They were a dysfunctional family but with no redeeming qualities. I do not think that the dysfunction was from being immigrants -- I think the characters were already dysfunctional. I know there was a lot of angst for the son growing up in 2 cultures. He felt that he didn't want anything to do with his birth culture (or parents) & he also felt the American culture didn't want anything to do with him. The real problems throughout were obviously the relationships (or lack of them) between the triangle of father, son, mother.

[Catherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have never read a book that provided so many characters interior monologues, and come away knowing so little about them. I am baffled by this book, by the disassociation that seems to exist between the author's words and the things they describe, much more than the purposeful and situational disassociation of the characters from the things they loved.

And the end, at the airport, with character D and character S . . . oh, that was just creepy.

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had a really hard time getting into this book because of the author's writing style. And on top of it, I just didn't really like any of the characters very much.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second time reading. Again, I don't quite understand why more people haven't read this book--it's really fantastic. Very carefully written, the prose is beautiful, and the story rewards multiple reads. I'm teaching it this semester to students who, for the most part, don't read for pleasure, and many of them have told me how much they've been enjoying it.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredibly overlooked novel from 10 years ago that might, in the era of Trump, find itself coming back into relevance, SONS AND OTHER FLAMMABLE OBJECTS centers around the relationship between a father, Darius, and a son, Xerxes, in a Persian-American family.

Khakpour, in the tradition of Zadie Smith, gives us a long novel with a simple enough plot: the Adams' move from Iran to America. They all have difficulty adjusting, especially the patriarch, Darius. This breeds a bad home situation, and eventually Darius' son, Xerxes, grows up, moves from his LA to New York, and refuses to speak to his father.

Throughout the novel, Darius struggles with the conflicting impulses to both push his son away and reclaim him as his own, while Xerxes, grappling with an identity crisis, slowly comes to the realization that he can't disown his family if he wants to properly figure out who he is.

I keep wanting to call this a Great American Novel, which in some respects it is: it is long and the prose is fantastically well-written, the author is an American citizen, and it has something in common with other books that have been given that vague title--The Corrections, Infinite Jest, etc.

On the other hand, none of its main characters are born in America, and none of them seem to feel particularly American. It is not so much a novel about the US as it is about the IDEA of the US--the Adams, after fleeing their homeland, are in search of a new, safer identity: that of American. But, as they eventually learn, what they're looking for can't be found; the US is a collage of immigrant cultures, which amalgamate to form something truly bizarre and incoherent. Perhaps that is what makes it the ultimate Great American Novel--that Khakpour seems to reject the very idea of an "American" anything.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't get into this book and eventually gave up.

[Jay Shelat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boy, oh, boy, the men in this book were awful.

[Izetta Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sons and Other Flammable Objects, revolves around the life of the Adam (properly pronounced Odd-damn, as some of the wittiest writing in the novel explains) family. The novel focuses with laser-like quality on the life of Xerxes Adam, the wayward, confused, bicultural Iranian-American son, whose obsessions (with Barbara Eden, mediocrity, a desperate desire to assimilate, and determination never to return to his family) ground the novel.Sons, is a modern-day bildungsroman, albeit one that takes place well into the character’s adulthood, suggesting that “growing up,” in our post-9/11 multicultural American landscape, comes later than adolescence or even our mid-twenties.

Khakpour’s Xerxes is at times despicable, endearing,pitiful,rage-inducing,and utterly without tools in a modernized world that requires a hefty wrench and Phillip’s screwdriver. Raised in Los Angeles, socially isolated and preternaturally aware of the differences between himself and his peers in sunny L.A., Xerxes manages his angst, with I Love Jeanie, choreographed coughing designed to ease awkwardness with his parents, and a plan to escape to anywhere, which eventually lands him in New York. When trauma hits in the form of 9/11, Xerxes’ fear – fear of his difference being revealed, his own dull awareness of self-destructive tendencies, and loneliness, fold him into a downward spiral.

The novel opens on the Adam family, as Darius Adam, Xerxes’ father, tries to, “save. Save themselves in the end, via saving the spring’s batch of blue jays who had suddenly in their cheery oblivious way taken residence among the palms and oaks of their conflicted suburban California neighborhood." This incident, Darius trying to save the birds becomes the trigger for the disintegration of the relationship between father and son. It also provides the central allegory in the novel: birds; the universal symbol of freedom, here, also reference the Persian mythology of Simorgh, an ancient flying creature.

The larger allegory, suggests as does the title, that children, are flammable objects; serving as the family phoenix, rising from the ashes of destruction, but they may also fail to understand their parents and themselves; burning in their own rebirth.

It’s been suggested that Sons is reminiscent of Zadie Smth’s White Teeth. I found this comparison distracting. It is a disservice to both authors. My assumption is that in the publishing world “Zadie Smith,” is shorthand for multicultural genre. It is true that both Smith and Khakpour focus on the family tableaux, and both have written characters (Smith in The Autograph Man) obsessed with blonde beauties as a way to escape ethnic difference.It is also true, that with Sons, Khakpour reveals an enviable talent at nearly the same age as Smith’s debut. But Sons, is much too non-linear to be likened to Smith. Sons can be described as part of the literary progeny of two Hermans - Wouk, for humor and Melville for the expansive attempt to capture a moment in American history, that reflects a greater commentary on diversity, belonging, nation-building, violence, and personal identity.

Sons is a complex novel that does not adhere to a linear psychological development of characters. Like many first novels, Khakpour would have benefited from more disciplined editing - the book is simply too long and in places could be far more focused. Readers will need vigor to understand the witty asides, metaphors, and character development.

I am glad that writers, like Khakpour recognize and claim 9/11 and the resulting realignments and fear, as one of our new century’s greatest human narrative arcs. I am glad that an Iranian-American woman’s voice has been added to these discussions and conversations. Too often in the U.S., we see Middle-Eastern women as those to be liberated, not as those, who in fact have nuanced, powerful, funny leaning toward biting, and liberating messages.

[China · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm skimming through the reviews and somehow managed the opposite reactions of most people here. Properly loved the writing style, didn't find it at all tedious. For writing that is so wordy, I appreciated that it wasn't overly flowery and to an extent was written as realistically as someone might speak. That said, I felt this book was at its best in its first half--the thoughtful and relatively plotless half.

It hit a weak spot when the author's bitterness toward money began to show, referring to the point at which we meet Suzanne's family. The upper class family that has enough money to not appreciate gifts, and that tosses around casual racism when no one's around--I get the bitterness, but it got too obviously personal here and the family was written as an easy stereotype.

I held my breath while hoping that the story wouldn't end the easy way out, with a plane crash, and was relieved that it didn't. I was also glad that 9/11 was not a focal point, though the political tension and Islamaphobia after 9/11 was what made the story's conclusion possible. So everything here did in fact happen for a reason.

All of the characters in this book were difficult to like but had very realistic elements, so I suppose it did a good job of touching on how unlikable real people can be, and how that quality has to start somewhere. You know what was also refreshing? Seeing LA not painted in a glamorous light. She captured the neighborhood Lala and Darius lived in, and the ho-hum unremarkable quality of it.

[Magid · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to give this book 5 stars because Porochista is my hag, but it's also a really REALLY good book. I'm really inspired and impressed. It took me a while to get into her narrative style, but once it clicked, it was like Porochista was reading to me, making me laugh with her wisecracks, hilarious asides and turns of phrase. Hers is quite a unique voice. Apart from what you've probably read in other reviews, the thing that touched me most about this book was the way Porochista so sensetively and with great insight portrayed the fragility and complexity of the father-son relationship. Not an easy thing to do, but she hit it absolutely on the nail. Nuff respec'.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for yet another lit class. I love everything about this novel, and I met the author who was amazing which made the novel better. Really informative on the Muslim culture and how the main character tries to fit into his Persian and American culture during his childhood and Sept. 11th. Def read this!

[Jorie · Rating 2 out of 5]

very hard to get through and not worth it in the end.

[Leila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Porochista Khakpour's first novel, which received critical acclaim but not a great deal of popular attention, explores themes such as the relationship between fathers and sons, the role of memory in our lives, ethnic identity, and the pain of exile, in this case from revolutionary Iran. It is also a pretty intriguing post-9/11 novel and deserves to be considered as worthy 9/11 fiction alongside "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," "Falling Man," and "The Emperor's Children."

What I most appreciated in this novel was Khakpour's beautiful, often startling, use of symbolism... fire, names (XERXES! so fabulous), dreams, and most especially the birds. Oh, the birds, the birds in this book! She pours it on thick, and I loved it; possibly other readers would find it all too much (and shout, "Enough!"... little in-joke from the novel. Sorry). She also demonstrates a sharp sense of humor (most memorably, for me--the scene in which Lala, Xerxes's mother, tries to explain to an African-American friend about the Persian tradition of a holiday figure who brings toys to children and wears black soot on this face... essentially, a Santa Claus in blackface. Also--Xerxes's childhood fixation with "I Dream of Jeannie" and his parents' worries that this meant he was gay...Absolutely perfect!)

I think what I'd critique here would be perhaps a first-time novelist's tendency to overdo it, to over-explain; to build up that final climax just a bit too much. Sometimes less is more. In addition, I sensed something was missing or vague in the memories of the family as they fled Iran.... Khakpour seems to imply throughout the novel that something dramatic and nightmarish happened, but in the end, there is no "big reveal." And there needn't be, for the novel to work--but the author worked so hard to set it up that it's a bit disconcerting and unclear when, at the end, whatever "it" was is left unsaid (or possibly imagined?).

Probably a 3.5 for me. I would certainly read Khakpour again. I enjoy her non-fiction pieces in the NY Times, Slate, etc, as well.

[C.P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good first novel. I especially liked the interplay of the themes: the burning flying objects and the mixing of worlds. On the latter, the sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie", where the mixing of the magical with the scientific world is a secret, is a template for the mixing problems of immigrants with native-born Americans, of dream with real world, of sane with insane people, of history with the present and so on throughout the book.

It ends very succinctly and elegantly, but that elegance is gained through an explanation which could have been brought in much earlier.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book though slightly tedious to read. And it contained charecte3rs with whom I had little to no sense of connection. It's helpful to remember that messed up families don't need a civil war or a revolution to screw them up--and to that end this book was inisghtful. But generally not sure what i was supposed to take away from it nor I am sure that I did.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems to have been marketed as a 9/11 novel about Iranian Americans, but it should speak to anyone with a family history of communication problems. I might have given it more stars, but I know the author ... must appear neutral.

[AnnMarie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Porochista Khakpour has a unique writing style that kept me reading this mostly plot-less book. I do not think the author's choice to haphazardly throw 9/11 into the mix helped with the narrative and felt cliche and over-written. Not great, not horrible, too long.

[Gui Nabais Freitas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first encountered Porochista Khakpour through her New York Times article, 'My Nine Years as a Middle-Eastern American'. Khakpour's unsparing and candid account of life under Bush's America, and in particular the impact of 9/11 (cab drivers looking at her with suspicion when she started speaking Farsi on the phone), made me want to explore her work more deeply (there's a very good YouTube video where Khakpour talks about the responses to that New York Times article).

Porochista Khakpour's novel is a moving and poignant tale of a young boy growing up in the Iranian diaspora of the United States. Growing up in a country which knows nothing of his traditions and roots, Xerxes Adams has to struggle to come to terms with his own sense of identity. One critic has described the novel as "lashing, dark humor tinged with deep melancholy" and I think that that really touches on the novel's stylistic richness.

The narrative is compelling itself but the conflict which Xerxes has with his father Darius (both, of course, very evocative names which are only bizarre to the average, middle-class 1980s Americans around them) and mother refuses to simplify or reduce the novel's narrative. Xerxes's adolescence (with its usual struggles of self-formation) is combined with a father who refuses to let go of his Iranian past, and a mother who seems only to eager to assimilate.

I notice some reviews criticise the boo on the grounds that they fail to sympathise with any of the characters but I think that's part of the point; it would be an injustice for the reader to be able to easily associate themselves with a Xerxes who is unable to even feel comfortable with himself (just as a condescending pity isn't right, either). Ultimately, Khakpour gives us an unflinching portrayal of the challenges of being an Iranian-American (Khakpour notes how one commentator dismissively claimed that if she just dropped the "Iranian" part of the label, then all her problems would go away). Not only is Sons and Other Flammable Objects an entertaining and superbly well-written novel, but it is also one which doesn't hesitate to show us the painful ambiguity at the heart of its protagonist's identity.

[Wray F · Rating 2 out of 5]

SPOILERS: I wish the plight of this family concerned me more, but it just didn't. This is a novel of character's thoughts and the action itself leaves much to be desired. There is just not much story here. The son, Xerxes, is a mopy, whiny character who never changes, even into young adulthood. All he ever seems to do is complain about his family and that gets old. The father, Darius, another one who is never happy, is probably deserving of his families' scorn. He is not very likeable either. The mother, Lala, is probably the most fun character to follow. She is a conservative, sheltered woman who decides to get out and enjoy herself...for a brief time. That plot line ends quickly. The whole trip to Iran and New York ends with a whimper. Wish I could be more positive, but the characters weren't very intriguing and the story itself wasn't for me.

[Elliott Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Hysterical and a fun read!

This is a coming to America story from the perspective of Iranian-Americans who fled the Islamic Revolution. A father, mother, and son are seriously sarcastic and perhaps too hot-headed and stubborn and lack interpersonal skills, but seem on the cusp of getting their shit together by the end. Porochista has some great, long and winding sentences and there's a great pace to the ending. The shits in POV are also clear.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

The complexity and expressiveness of this novel drew me in. The family dynamics of the characters who each were figuring out how to deal with their past lives and current lives as immigrants was intriguing. However, the inner monologues were too lengthy, and became predictable and too angst-ridden. I ended up skimming the last half....
This was her first novel, and I will be looking for her other books to see how she has developed.

[Frankie]

This book took me literally forever. It wasn't a bad book, but it was hard to read. The style was sort of poetic and abrupt and there were long passages describing characters thoughts, all of which made it take effort to read. It had remarkably little dialogue. It definitely wasn't bad, but I just never got into it enough to make me want to read it in big chunks, which I think would've been a better way to consume it.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating novel that manages to be deeply introspective without any of the characters coming off as navel-gazers. Khakpour is a stunning writer with bold word choices and rich gorgeous prose. The innovative narrative styles she uses definitely highlight the amazing author she is (and continues to be).

[Jugu · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Don't say a word, especially in the case of the word not being a nice word, his father would say, messing up the saying, perhaps purposefully; he often botched his usually near-perfect English to make a point, Xerxes suspected, as if to say, Who cares about this bastard tongue?"

[Kelda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disturbingly hauntingly beautiful. This took me longer to read as I kept putting it down to mill over what I had ingested. This is not a light hearted read. It’s not formulaic and cannot be made into an even half decent movie. It is at its core a truly beautiful BOOK.

[Monica Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetically Heavy

Took some time for me to get through. It is heartbreaking. And yet, there's a magical quality to this writing and hints of joy/peace to come that kept me going. For me, it was relatable, not triggering. Worth the read with ideas that stick with you.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

For 75-80% of the book, I was thinking tht Sons and Other Flammable Objects was the Persian/Iranian American novel I'd been waiting for. (I don't teach my multicultural literature survey class at the University of Wisconsin any more, but I still tend to think in terms of finding books for particular syllabus slots, and I haven't found quite what I'd want for PI-Am.) Khakpour does a nice job establishing her complicated immigrant family with a range of complicated relationships to their complicated country/culture of origin. The use of 9/11 in the background/foreground is handled nicely, as is the distinction between the generations and the diasporic communities of LA and New York. She also has a lyrical touch with recurring images that lifted the prose above merely serviceable. And there's enough invocation of Persian mythology/history (characters named Xerxes and Darius) to add depth there.

All of which is a four star review. The problem, non-trivial, is that the denouement and conclusion are a major train wreck. I won't include spoilers here, but none of it convinced me even a little bit. It's possible something will occur to me that may lead to an upgrade and I'm not exactly saying don't read it, but be aware that when if it starts sounding off-key, that probably won't change.

[Sab · Rating 3 out of 5]

Khakpour nailed the first-generation experience; the chaos of assimilation, the growing pains of occupying multiple worlds (and many more timelines, as history-fact and history-fiction blend with whoever is loudest at any given moment) converging into the already vast mystery of young adulthood, the trials of knowing our parents and yet being complete strangers to them. It's a remarkable illustration of family dysfunction with very rich inner monologues. That said, it became difficult to track by the end.