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The Last Illusion
In an Iranian village, Zal's demented mother, horrified by the pallor of his skin and hair, is convinced she has given birth to a "white demon." She hides him in a birdcage for the next decade. Rescued by a behavioral analyst, Zal awakens in New York to the possibility of a future. A stunted and unfit adolescent, he strives to become human as he stumbles toward adulthood. As New York survives one potential disaster, Y2K, and begins hurtling toward another, 9/11, Zal finds himself in a cast of fellow outsiders. A friendship with a famous illusionist who claims—to the Bird Boy's delight—that he can fly and an affair with a disturbed artist who believes she is clairvoyant send Zal's life spiraling into chaos. Like the rest of New York, he is on a collision course with devastation.
336 pages, Paperback
First published May 13, 2014
38 people are currently reading
5739 people want to read
About the author
Porochista Khakpour
21 books508 followersPorochista 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews
January 22, 2025
One of the most frustrating, incomprehensible books I've ever read... the first half is written in an awkward, stilted, and detached writing style that kept me at an unmanageable distance from the characters. The second half switched to an overwrought, emotional writing style that mistakenly assumed I had been in these characters' heads all along...
February 24, 2014
This novel is far more than it's summary. It is a beautiful tangle of myth, love, magic, and illusion giving the reader one wonderful story. Zal begins his life in a cage, after his mother (horrified by his pale skin and hair) treats him like a bird. He is 'rescued' by his sister only to later come into the care of an adoptive American father and so begins the quest of normalcy for our feral little man. His dreaming in bird is inventively creative and Zal's struggle to be 'like the rest of us' is painful and funny. Porochista Khakpour has a unique voice and is one talented story teller. I can't wait for more from her. The tender mess of his love life is easy to relate to, even if you aren't a feral human. There is a mix of 'madness' that is also clairvoyant truth in his girlfriend Asiya, as her premonitions lead her into trouble and also become a heavy weight in our troubled Zal. She is good for him, she is bad for him and isn't that the story of many love lives?
I am reluctant to go into too much detail before this release (I had the pleasure of reading an ARC) but I will leave you with lines from this gifted writer.
"..and soon candy and junk food- explosive-tasting food that created thunderstorms in the mouth and fireworks in the stomach and all sort of warfare on the way out.'
"And so Zal's fascination with Silber had germinated in a season of a particularly contagious strangeness, when he was acting off, but then the whole world was, too: Y2K season."
"She kept wearing these religions, taking them on and off as though they were a style choice..."
"He was owned by her, trapped, behind her bars completely."
"What a human he was becoming, he thought. What a stupid human."
The following is my absolute favorite sentence in the entire novel, in fact, one of my favorites in years from any book.
"And so, slowly, like a starving warm atop his dream apple, he inched his body onto hers and found himself in that position he had dreamed of, over and over, on and off, curled up perfectly atop the mountain of her now rapidly heaving breast."
The latter sentence, because of the object of that particular intimate moment, is beautiful and paints quite a scene.
I highly recommend this book!
I am reluctant to go into too much detail before this release (I had the pleasure of reading an ARC) but I will leave you with lines from this gifted writer.
"..and soon candy and junk food- explosive-tasting food that created thunderstorms in the mouth and fireworks in the stomach and all sort of warfare on the way out.'
"And so Zal's fascination with Silber had germinated in a season of a particularly contagious strangeness, when he was acting off, but then the whole world was, too: Y2K season."
"She kept wearing these religions, taking them on and off as though they were a style choice..."
"He was owned by her, trapped, behind her bars completely."
"What a human he was becoming, he thought. What a stupid human."
The following is my absolute favorite sentence in the entire novel, in fact, one of my favorites in years from any book.
"And so, slowly, like a starving warm atop his dream apple, he inched his body onto hers and found himself in that position he had dreamed of, over and over, on and off, curled up perfectly atop the mountain of her now rapidly heaving breast."
The latter sentence, because of the object of that particular intimate moment, is beautiful and paints quite a scene.
I highly recommend this book!
May 29, 2014
I read this book in two days while at Ucross, an artists' residency in beautiful northeast Wyoming. This was the perfect setting to read this novel because, 1. The author may have written parts of it in the very same studio I was reading/writing in, which felt magical and impossible-possible in a way that echoed the book's magical yet realistic tone and premise. And, 2. Because I had hours to do with what I wanted, and what I wanted was to write for a couple of hours, and then read for a couple of hours, write and then read, until bedtime. Ah, bliss!
I fell into this book immediately and I loved Zal, the man who was raised as a bird by his uncaring mother. Khakpour's prose is exuberant and free-wheeling and so fuck-you-I-am-writing-this-nutty-paragraph-and-you-will-giggle-with-delight. It's fearless in this way that I admire greatly. It's also an engaging read--the first day I read 150 pages in a sitting and loved being absorbed in this imaginative world.
I was less enamored with the magician, Silber, and that subplot--it felt less immediate and more...designed?...compared to the other parts of the novel; that might be hard to avoid, since Silber himself is a pretty contrived human, speaking in silly magician jargon and whatnot. It's all very fun to read, but it didn't move me in the way that the book's other parts did. The ending didn't quite land for me either, though it never stopped being compelling. I was moved and taken with the book overall. I want everyone to read it so we can discuss!
I fell into this book immediately and I loved Zal, the man who was raised as a bird by his uncaring mother. Khakpour's prose is exuberant and free-wheeling and so fuck-you-I-am-writing-this-nutty-paragraph-and-you-will-giggle-with-delight. It's fearless in this way that I admire greatly. It's also an engaging read--the first day I read 150 pages in a sitting and loved being absorbed in this imaginative world.
I was less enamored with the magician, Silber, and that subplot--it felt less immediate and more...designed?...compared to the other parts of the novel; that might be hard to avoid, since Silber himself is a pretty contrived human, speaking in silly magician jargon and whatnot. It's all very fun to read, but it didn't move me in the way that the book's other parts did. The ending didn't quite land for me either, though it never stopped being compelling. I was moved and taken with the book overall. I want everyone to read it so we can discuss!
November 8, 2025
the first third of this book had me gripped beyond anything!!!!!!!!
the premise is so intriguing and unlike anything i’ve ever read but by the halfway point it started to feel repetitive - i was constantly being told things instead of shown them, which is a shame considering how unique the plot is
i can see the appeal and why it’s a crowd favourite but it just fell flat in the end for me
the premise is so intriguing and unlike anything i’ve ever read but by the halfway point it started to feel repetitive - i was constantly being told things instead of shown them, which is a shame considering how unique the plot is
i can see the appeal and why it’s a crowd favourite but it just fell flat in the end for me
August 25, 2016
This was nothing like I imagined it to be. Definitely one of the most disappointing reads of the year so far.
This book follows a young Iranian boy who has been kept in a birdcage by his mother. At the beginning of the novel he is rescued from his ten-year long prison and taken from Iran to New York where he is adopted by a behavioural analyst. We then see his VERY speedy recovery - some how he manages to reclaim his posture, speech and can function pretty well in human company. The book then details his life as a young man and the struggles he is going through, we see him trying to make friends and battling with his inner 'bird' instincts. At this point the book was verging on the side of boring and I couldn't see where the author was going with the strange addition of bizarre 'friends' for the young man. Each of these friends seemed to have a whole truckload of mental health issues of their own which I didn't think were dealt with in a great way - particularly the eating disorders/body dysmorphia elements of the book. To top it off a large thread of the book revolves around 9/11 and the World Trade centre being destroyed - I won't spoil it for you but I personally feel that this topic was handled in a very disrespectful way and I couldn't really see why it needed to be added in to begin with - I mean we already have a kid who has spent most of his life in a birdcage and his peculiar friends...is that not enough for an engaging plot?! Clearly not...
This novel was all over the place, I don't really know what the author was trying to do! She has taken on a lot of big topics - feral children, mental health issues, eating disorders plus 9/11 on top of all that! It was like she was trying to squeeze in as many things as possible and ended up doing a bad job of it all. I wouldn't recommend.
This book follows a young Iranian boy who has been kept in a birdcage by his mother. At the beginning of the novel he is rescued from his ten-year long prison and taken from Iran to New York where he is adopted by a behavioural analyst. We then see his VERY speedy recovery - some how he manages to reclaim his posture, speech and can function pretty well in human company. The book then details his life as a young man and the struggles he is going through, we see him trying to make friends and battling with his inner 'bird' instincts. At this point the book was verging on the side of boring and I couldn't see where the author was going with the strange addition of bizarre 'friends' for the young man. Each of these friends seemed to have a whole truckload of mental health issues of their own which I didn't think were dealt with in a great way - particularly the eating disorders/body dysmorphia elements of the book. To top it off a large thread of the book revolves around 9/11 and the World Trade centre being destroyed - I won't spoil it for you but I personally feel that this topic was handled in a very disrespectful way and I couldn't really see why it needed to be added in to begin with - I mean we already have a kid who has spent most of his life in a birdcage and his peculiar friends...is that not enough for an engaging plot?! Clearly not...
This novel was all over the place, I don't really know what the author was trying to do! She has taken on a lot of big topics - feral children, mental health issues, eating disorders plus 9/11 on top of all that! It was like she was trying to squeeze in as many things as possible and ended up doing a bad job of it all. I wouldn't recommend.
February 14, 2022
3.5 stars
This was one of the oddest and most unique books I've read in a long time. Part myth brought to life and part messed up personal lives set against the back drop of something it will take me awhile to process. I'm not sure if I liked this book more or less than I thought I would at the beginning.
This was one of the oddest and most unique books I've read in a long time. Part myth brought to life and part messed up personal lives set against the back drop of something it will take me awhile to process. I'm not sure if I liked this book more or less than I thought I would at the beginning.
August 14, 2019
Synopsis:
At the age of forty-seven, Khanoom gives birth to a baby boy. An unplanned child with a husband who's long dead after a prolonged sickness, the baby's an albino. Khanoom has a fetish for catching birds and putting them in cages, all of whom she considers dear to her, much more than her eight children. Especially her eighth one, the albino, who she refers to as the white demon. She cuts off all human contact and keeps the child like a bird in a cage.
On intervention from Khanoom's seventh child, a woman named Zari, Zal is released into the world. He has now been adopted by a Tony Hendricks and is also being counselled by a psychologist, Dr Rhodes, both men specialising and involved in the study of feral children. This is the story of Zal Hendricks.
Review:
Based on an ancient Persian legend, The Last Illusion tells the story of Zal. The original story is one of the most celebrated ones of the Shahnameh, or the Book of Kings, the national epic of Iran. Much like what the Ramayana or the Mahabharata means to us Indians.
The book has dour humour, it's sickly hilarity cracks you up. As much as the story is inspired by an epic, the book seems to come out from the pages of a fantasy world. Though this fantasy is steeped in the reality of 2000-2001 New York. This is a very unconventional read. As different from every other story out there as it can be.
Divided into nine parts, with each part depicting Zal's life, his progress/regress in his journey of becoming a man from a bird; the author has woven a fantastic tale with quirky characters. Although I loved all of them, I liked Asiya McDonald more - the clairvoyant girlfriend. There is something quite magical in all the eccentricity. I liked her quirks, her visions, her delusions, everything. And her transformation too, a healthy transformation.
It indeed is! First, there's Zal, and though I know it's a story, it was still hard to digest about a mother being so cruel. And I was surprised to find that there are real instances of such cruelty too. Then there's what Willa, Asiya's younger sister, had to face at a young age.
Among all the relationships given in the book, I was struggling with Asiya and Zal's. That bird boy found love, or what he thought love is like, was in itself a wonder. But both their self-destructive tendencies made me tear my hair at times.
This was a whacky story. Everything came to a head in the last part. Something's about to happen, which we already know about, but so many things have already happened. The story is about so much more. So many hurts. So many lunacies, so many lucidities. While the outside world is going on, progressing, it seems the book, the story, came a full circle.
Released in the same year, I couldn't help but think of the movie - Birdman, which first released on 27 August, followed by a worldwide release on November 14.
Extra Reading:
About Zal
P.S. Picking up this book was no conscious decision. This is one book in a long time which I happened to chance across in the library shelves. The blurb ensnared me. This book is also my entry for #ReadingWomenChallenge Prompt 21: Book bought/borrowed in 2019. I borrowed this book from the local branch of Delhi Public Library.
Originally posted on:
https://sassyshaina.wordpress.com/201...
At the age of forty-seven, Khanoom gives birth to a baby boy. An unplanned child with a husband who's long dead after a prolonged sickness, the baby's an albino. Khanoom has a fetish for catching birds and putting them in cages, all of whom she considers dear to her, much more than her eight children. Especially her eighth one, the albino, who she refers to as the white demon. She cuts off all human contact and keeps the child like a bird in a cage.
On intervention from Khanoom's seventh child, a woman named Zari, Zal is released into the world. He has now been adopted by a Tony Hendricks and is also being counselled by a psychologist, Dr Rhodes, both men specialising and involved in the study of feral children. This is the story of Zal Hendricks.
Review:
Exactly once upon a time in a small village in northern Iran, a child of the wrong color was born.
Based on an ancient Persian legend, The Last Illusion tells the story of Zal. The original story is one of the most celebrated ones of the Shahnameh, or the Book of Kings, the national epic of Iran. Much like what the Ramayana or the Mahabharata means to us Indians.
The book has dour humour, it's sickly hilarity cracks you up. As much as the story is inspired by an epic, the book seems to come out from the pages of a fantasy world. Though this fantasy is steeped in the reality of 2000-2001 New York. This is a very unconventional read. As different from every other story out there as it can be.
Divided into nine parts, with each part depicting Zal's life, his progress/regress in his journey of becoming a man from a bird; the author has woven a fantastic tale with quirky characters. Although I loved all of them, I liked Asiya McDonald more - the clairvoyant girlfriend. There is something quite magical in all the eccentricity. I liked her quirks, her visions, her delusions, everything. And her transformation too, a healthy transformation.
The world was such a very bad place.
It indeed is! First, there's Zal, and though I know it's a story, it was still hard to digest about a mother being so cruel. And I was surprised to find that there are real instances of such cruelty too. Then there's what Willa, Asiya's younger sister, had to face at a young age.
His skin was pale and prone to irritations but nothing so different from the usual blemishy human.
Among all the relationships given in the book, I was struggling with Asiya and Zal's. That bird boy found love, or what he thought love is like, was in itself a wonder. But both their self-destructive tendencies made me tear my hair at times.
This was a whacky story. Everything came to a head in the last part. Something's about to happen, which we already know about, but so many things have already happened. The story is about so much more. So many hurts. So many lunacies, so many lucidities. While the outside world is going on, progressing, it seems the book, the story, came a full circle.
Released in the same year, I couldn't help but think of the movie - Birdman, which first released on 27 August, followed by a worldwide release on November 14.
Extra Reading:
About Zal
P.S. Picking up this book was no conscious decision. This is one book in a long time which I happened to chance across in the library shelves. The blurb ensnared me. This book is also my entry for #ReadingWomenChallenge Prompt 21: Book bought/borrowed in 2019. I borrowed this book from the local branch of Delhi Public Library.
Originally posted on:
https://sassyshaina.wordpress.com/201...
February 4, 2018
4/5stars
4.5-5/5stars | Favorite Standalone
February 4 2018 Update: I'm still VERY fond of this book and think it's great, but I've simply read so much BETTER of books since this one that it definitely got knocked down a bit. It's not a fave anymore, and I've definitely seen thing this novel did done better other places. So, bringing this one down just a bit.
Trigger Warnings: discussion of rape, portrayal of panic attacks, use of vulgar homosexual slurs, eating disorders
This was fuckin' fantastic, baby! (as Bran Silber would say... or Big Bang, depending on how you look at it.)
I was hoping I would love this book, going into it, but it absolutely blew me away. This story was so incredibly unique, gripping, sort of beautiful, and horrific. In this story we follow a feral child named Zal, who was born as an albino in Iran, where his mother believed he was a demon and locked him in a bird cage throughout his developmental years. The story really begins when Zal has grown into an adult - after years of therapy to teach him speech and how humans think, and many surgeries to correct his deformed body, he believes he is ready to become "normal." We follow Zal as he becomes obsessed with a Magician who he believes can really fly - and his disappointment once he discovers its all a trick. We watch him struggle to understand everything as he gets his first girlfriend - and that, kissing might be nice, but it is considered cheating if you kiss someone who isn't your girlfriend. And finally, we see him as he spirals into a place where he doesn't know where to go from, how to get back on his feet, and where he is mostly just depressed and unknowing what to do with his life.
Like I said, I ADORED this book:
I've personally never a fictional story about feral children, so the plot was incredibly unique.
Getting inside this character's head - who so badly wanted to be normal, even though he still dreamed of flying, ate bugs like a bird would, and struggled to have sex with his girlfriend due to his asexuality - was so incredibly interesting. I personally didn't particularly like Zal - his thought process could be very... offensive. But, I also thought this was really the only way to show how different he really was to normal human beings because he didn't understand, yet, what was normal and what was not. And I also loved reading his thoughts BECAUSE they were so strange and offensive - it was one of the most interesting parts of this book.
I LOVED the incredibly unique cast of characters we got. We got Zal - the "bird boy." We got Asiya - a girl who changed religions a dozen times, had visions of the world ending, and had her own mental and physical health problems. We got Willa - Asiya's sister who was so overweight she couldn't get out of bed, but who Zal thought was beautiful because she, like him, was considered a "freak." We got Zach, Asiya and Willa's criminal, stoner brother who hated Zal because he made out with his best friend. We got Hendricks - the caring father figure who had adopted Zal and always wanted to do what was right for him. And we got Silber - the lunatic magician who talked like a girl from New Jersey and had a plan to make NYC disappear.
One of the only issues I had with the character development was the fact that Zal was asexual, but forced himself to not be because that was one of the things that made him weird or a "freak." I understand his viewpoint is a bit warped, but that part of the story did personally bother me a bit - I would really like some positive, normal asexual representation where they're not suddenly "fixed" after having awesome sex.
The writing was BEAUTIFUL. I'm a very fast reader, but this was a novel (even though I did read it in like, 2 days) that I really took my time with and read every single word of, and had to take breaks from reading every once in a while to just absorb everything. Porochista Khakpour just has a way with words. She doesn't go on and on with metaphors (which I, personally, HATE in books, when they have so many metaphors that you barely know what the real meaning is) and she was very direct with telling what was going on and people's backstories. Yet, she beautifully developed each and every character in SUCH a realistic way. Her writing wasn't poetic, but it was whimsical and beautiful in a very simple way.
I also ADORED the idea to this entire novel - it was what initially gripped me. The second I heard that there was a book about a boy who was raised as a bird and was trying to be a normal person (and had that GORGEOUS cover) I knew I had to read it. This book waves Iranian myths and folklore with a contemporary setting and plotline - and it worked PERFECTLY. It had such a great balance between the New York City, romance, finding-yourself type plot mixed with the Iran legends of Zal - the bird man, and who our main protagonist was named after.
This book also had humor, which I have discovered recently is a HUGE plus for me. I never really cared before about humor, but I've been loving just those certain snarky, witty remarks from characters or just ridiculous situations. Like when Zal worked at a pet store and kept taking out a bird to play with - he tried to hide it in his coat, bring it with him to the bathroom, and eventually set it free (and was then fired, obviously).
But, to balance out the humor, this book had incredibly REAL and relevant topics - such as panic and anxiety disorders, rape, homosexuality and trying to discover yourself and get yourself on your feet.
The ending of this book absolutely took me by surprise. About 200 pages in, I must say, I was sitting there wondering what the plot of this book really was. Even though it wasn't very plot-driven, I never found myself bored, but I WAS wondering how on earth it was going to end. I started putting pieces together about 250 pages in or so, during Asiya and Zal's anniversary date, and from there, it was obvious where the book was headed, and when I realized I was like "wait, whaaaaaaaaaat??" Totally shocked by what type of book this turned into! Which I am going to say in this spoiler area:
Overall, I LOVED this book. I highly recommend it for my Murakami, magical realism, postmodern lovers. This is definitely not for younger readers due to the abundance of explicit sex scenes. But, if you're over the age of like 16/17ish I would totally recommend picking this up, but take caution of the trigger warnings!
February 4 2018 Update: I'm still VERY fond of this book and think it's great, but I've simply read so much BETTER of books since this one that it definitely got knocked down a bit. It's not a fave anymore, and I've definitely seen thing this novel did done better other places. So, bringing this one down just a bit.
Trigger Warnings: discussion of rape, portrayal of panic attacks, use of vulgar homosexual slurs, eating disorders
This was fuckin' fantastic, baby! (as Bran Silber would say... or Big Bang, depending on how you look at it.)
I was hoping I would love this book, going into it, but it absolutely blew me away. This story was so incredibly unique, gripping, sort of beautiful, and horrific. In this story we follow a feral child named Zal, who was born as an albino in Iran, where his mother believed he was a demon and locked him in a bird cage throughout his developmental years. The story really begins when Zal has grown into an adult - after years of therapy to teach him speech and how humans think, and many surgeries to correct his deformed body, he believes he is ready to become "normal." We follow Zal as he becomes obsessed with a Magician who he believes can really fly - and his disappointment once he discovers its all a trick. We watch him struggle to understand everything as he gets his first girlfriend - and that, kissing might be nice, but it is considered cheating if you kiss someone who isn't your girlfriend. And finally, we see him as he spirals into a place where he doesn't know where to go from, how to get back on his feet, and where he is mostly just depressed and unknowing what to do with his life.
Like I said, I ADORED this book:
I've personally never a fictional story about feral children, so the plot was incredibly unique.
Getting inside this character's head - who so badly wanted to be normal, even though he still dreamed of flying, ate bugs like a bird would, and struggled to have sex with his girlfriend due to his asexuality - was so incredibly interesting. I personally didn't particularly like Zal - his thought process could be very... offensive. But, I also thought this was really the only way to show how different he really was to normal human beings because he didn't understand, yet, what was normal and what was not. And I also loved reading his thoughts BECAUSE they were so strange and offensive - it was one of the most interesting parts of this book.
I LOVED the incredibly unique cast of characters we got. We got Zal - the "bird boy." We got Asiya - a girl who changed religions a dozen times, had visions of the world ending, and had her own mental and physical health problems. We got Willa - Asiya's sister who was so overweight she couldn't get out of bed, but who Zal thought was beautiful because she, like him, was considered a "freak." We got Zach, Asiya and Willa's criminal, stoner brother who hated Zal because he made out with his best friend. We got Hendricks - the caring father figure who had adopted Zal and always wanted to do what was right for him. And we got Silber - the lunatic magician who talked like a girl from New Jersey and had a plan to make NYC disappear.
One of the only issues I had with the character development was the fact that Zal was asexual, but forced himself to not be because that was one of the things that made him weird or a "freak." I understand his viewpoint is a bit warped, but that part of the story did personally bother me a bit - I would really like some positive, normal asexual representation where they're not suddenly "fixed" after having awesome sex.
The writing was BEAUTIFUL. I'm a very fast reader, but this was a novel (even though I did read it in like, 2 days) that I really took my time with and read every single word of, and had to take breaks from reading every once in a while to just absorb everything. Porochista Khakpour just has a way with words. She doesn't go on and on with metaphors (which I, personally, HATE in books, when they have so many metaphors that you barely know what the real meaning is) and she was very direct with telling what was going on and people's backstories. Yet, she beautifully developed each and every character in SUCH a realistic way. Her writing wasn't poetic, but it was whimsical and beautiful in a very simple way.
I also ADORED the idea to this entire novel - it was what initially gripped me. The second I heard that there was a book about a boy who was raised as a bird and was trying to be a normal person (and had that GORGEOUS cover) I knew I had to read it. This book waves Iranian myths and folklore with a contemporary setting and plotline - and it worked PERFECTLY. It had such a great balance between the New York City, romance, finding-yourself type plot mixed with the Iran legends of Zal - the bird man, and who our main protagonist was named after.
This book also had humor, which I have discovered recently is a HUGE plus for me. I never really cared before about humor, but I've been loving just those certain snarky, witty remarks from characters or just ridiculous situations. Like when Zal worked at a pet store and kept taking out a bird to play with - he tried to hide it in his coat, bring it with him to the bathroom, and eventually set it free (and was then fired, obviously).
But, to balance out the humor, this book had incredibly REAL and relevant topics - such as panic and anxiety disorders, rape, homosexuality and trying to discover yourself and get yourself on your feet.
The ending of this book absolutely took me by surprise. About 200 pages in, I must say, I was sitting there wondering what the plot of this book really was. Even though it wasn't very plot-driven, I never found myself bored, but I WAS wondering how on earth it was going to end. I started putting pieces together about 250 pages in or so, during Asiya and Zal's anniversary date, and from there, it was obvious where the book was headed, and when I realized I was like "wait, whaaaaaaaaaat??" Totally shocked by what type of book this turned into! Which I am going to say in this spoiler area:
Overall, I LOVED this book. I highly recommend it for my Murakami, magical realism, postmodern lovers. This is definitely not for younger readers due to the abundance of explicit sex scenes. But, if you're over the age of like 16/17ish I would totally recommend picking this up, but take caution of the trigger warnings!
October 9, 2018
Labelling this book as magical realism or fantasy is somewhat misleading.
Although the premise seems fantastical, Zal, the protagonist of this book is abandoned by his mother and raised in a cage with other birds having no contact with humans until he is 10, and in real life there have been no feral children raised by birds, this book is otherwise more on the realistic side.
However what makes this book mythic is the fact that Zal is named after a character in the Persian Shahnameh, or Book of Kings who is also abandoned by his parents and raised by a giant white bird. Zal from Shahnameh ends up becoming one of the greatest warriors of Persian legends.
The Zal in this book is adopted by the American psychologist and specialist in feral children Anthony Hendricks and brought to live in New York City.
The feeling is more like a coming of age story with Zal striving to find himself and become human.
I found Zal very endearing, the writing compelling and the story highly moving.
The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars is I found the illusionist character to be boring and unnecessary in the plot. Fortunately in spite of the fact that the book is called The Last Illusion, the illusionist character really only has a small role in the story.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for something different!
Although the premise seems fantastical, Zal, the protagonist of this book is abandoned by his mother and raised in a cage with other birds having no contact with humans until he is 10, and in real life there have been no feral children raised by birds, this book is otherwise more on the realistic side.
However what makes this book mythic is the fact that Zal is named after a character in the Persian Shahnameh, or Book of Kings who is also abandoned by his parents and raised by a giant white bird. Zal from Shahnameh ends up becoming one of the greatest warriors of Persian legends.
The Zal in this book is adopted by the American psychologist and specialist in feral children Anthony Hendricks and brought to live in New York City.
The feeling is more like a coming of age story with Zal striving to find himself and become human.
I found Zal very endearing, the writing compelling and the story highly moving.
The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars is I found the illusionist character to be boring and unnecessary in the plot. Fortunately in spite of the fact that the book is called The Last Illusion, the illusionist character really only has a small role in the story.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for something different!
November 27, 2015
So heavy handed and repetitive. This concept was original and started out really well, but took a bad turn. I got so tired of reading about the mundane lives of the lead characters midway through, despite their quirks and insecurities. Even worse was how the author kept alluding to 9/11 in such a cloying and irritating way. She'd say things like"the year after 2010 was 3/4ths complete" or "August had just passed". Those weren't direct quotes, but there are some equally terrible ones throughout the last half of the book. If you want to read a much better book with polished prose, try "Sons and Other Flammable Objects" by the same author.
August 13, 2014
Could a boy be a bird? Could a bird be a boy? Could a boy be raised by birds? Or by his own mother, stuck in a cage, with no place to move and no sound to utter and no embrace to receive, hailed as the White Demon? Could a Persian myth be a story played out in New York of 2001? The 2001? That awful September month? That day, the 11th? It could. And it could rivet you to your seat, or to the floor, or to the wall, or wherever it is you would be reading this book, perhaps perched on the edge of your seat as a bird, because you wouldn’t want to move until you’ve finished it. It’s glorious, it's spectacular, it’s imaginative and charming and heartbreaking. It will make you lovesick and it will make your eyes overflow and your feelings tangle and your dreams perhaps run over themselves, and all of it swooping on you in a feathery cacophony, dazzling you with a set of characters you can't imagine having anything in common. A bird boy, a psychic girl, a magician who is full of tricks and emptiness and mirrors, and that’s not even half of it.
Could you pack so much darkness and love in the same book and swirl it with colors and mythology and deep rich history and yet make it almost a fable of the modern time? But, I am boring you. About the story. The story evolves around Zal Hendricks born in Iran to a woman who declares him a White Demon due to his fair skin and stuffs him in a bird cage and raises him that way until he is rescued and brought to US by his new father, an analyst studying feral children. And, well, from here on Zal’s mission is to grow up, to adapt to being normal and to survive, and perhaps even make a life for himself, in New York. Like, fighting his urges to eat bugs, for example, or to fly, or wondering who he is and what is he to do. What do normal humans do. Kiss? Date? Love? What is it all? What does it mean? The story is a parallel to the Book of Kings, the Persian epic Shahnameh about an albino hero taken away by a giant bird after he was abandoned and raised by it, only to return later to the world of men and to become a great warrior. And, in many ways, it’s a parallel to our own coming-of-age, with subtle satire, elegant humor, and vivid scenes that border on difficult truths to swallow, strangely serene and beautiful in their horror. And, every sentence is a gem. A candy. A lollipop you suck and it never ends. I’m in envy of the words in this book. Lovely, lovely. Go read it.
Could you pack so much darkness and love in the same book and swirl it with colors and mythology and deep rich history and yet make it almost a fable of the modern time? But, I am boring you. About the story. The story evolves around Zal Hendricks born in Iran to a woman who declares him a White Demon due to his fair skin and stuffs him in a bird cage and raises him that way until he is rescued and brought to US by his new father, an analyst studying feral children. And, well, from here on Zal’s mission is to grow up, to adapt to being normal and to survive, and perhaps even make a life for himself, in New York. Like, fighting his urges to eat bugs, for example, or to fly, or wondering who he is and what is he to do. What do normal humans do. Kiss? Date? Love? What is it all? What does it mean? The story is a parallel to the Book of Kings, the Persian epic Shahnameh about an albino hero taken away by a giant bird after he was abandoned and raised by it, only to return later to the world of men and to become a great warrior. And, in many ways, it’s a parallel to our own coming-of-age, with subtle satire, elegant humor, and vivid scenes that border on difficult truths to swallow, strangely serene and beautiful in their horror. And, every sentence is a gem. A candy. A lollipop you suck and it never ends. I’m in envy of the words in this book. Lovely, lovely. Go read it.
March 17, 2014
Zal was raised as a bird, but he isn't really a bird. He is a boy, but only in the physical sense. Trapped in a cage for the first ten years of his life by an abusive mother for having light skin, his siblings were the other caged birds, from whom he learned how to be a bird. When he is eventually released, a team of developmental psychologists and scientists specializing in feral children help him learn normal human ways. From there, he has to master the world like anyone else.
Along the way he meets a cast of bizarre, unique people. Each person in The Last Illusion faces their own set of problems, but they form relationships and help each other feel more comfortable and accepted in the world. The end of the book is filled with chaos, but Zal finally begins to feel human.
I was immediately drawn to the idea of a boy being raised as a bird. I thought it was original, although there are probably other books that have done similar things. Zal's transition from bird to boy is not written in great detail, but his development into a man is the main focus of the novel. Getting to see how he thinks, the reader will realize that he is actually quite similar to ordinary people, in that he is just trying to find his way in a world that doesn't understand him. While he is the main character, there are also many other characters that we get to see, and they are all as extraordinary as Zal.
The novel also includes things like Y2K and 9/11. The parts about 9/11, especially, were so suspenseful because you knew what was going to happen but the author put such a great spin on it that you weren't sure what to expect.
I really like books that have themes that aren't often talked about, like feral children, that are written as fictional stories about the people that experience these things. Khakpour's writing is incredibly detailed: how Zal was deformed from being stuck in a cage, having to live in his own excrement, and his desire to eat bugs that persists into adulthood. But my favorite thing was reading about Zal's mindset because of how complex his mind is.
The Last Illusion wasn't perfect, but it was still an excellent book and definitely recommended.
Along the way he meets a cast of bizarre, unique people. Each person in The Last Illusion faces their own set of problems, but they form relationships and help each other feel more comfortable and accepted in the world. The end of the book is filled with chaos, but Zal finally begins to feel human.
I was immediately drawn to the idea of a boy being raised as a bird. I thought it was original, although there are probably other books that have done similar things. Zal's transition from bird to boy is not written in great detail, but his development into a man is the main focus of the novel. Getting to see how he thinks, the reader will realize that he is actually quite similar to ordinary people, in that he is just trying to find his way in a world that doesn't understand him. While he is the main character, there are also many other characters that we get to see, and they are all as extraordinary as Zal.
The novel also includes things like Y2K and 9/11. The parts about 9/11, especially, were so suspenseful because you knew what was going to happen but the author put such a great spin on it that you weren't sure what to expect.
I really like books that have themes that aren't often talked about, like feral children, that are written as fictional stories about the people that experience these things. Khakpour's writing is incredibly detailed: how Zal was deformed from being stuck in a cage, having to live in his own excrement, and his desire to eat bugs that persists into adulthood. But my favorite thing was reading about Zal's mindset because of how complex his mind is.
The Last Illusion wasn't perfect, but it was still an excellent book and definitely recommended.
May 27, 2014
I wasn't as enamored by this book as I'd hoped to be. I'm not sure why. It has so many things that I normally would adore in books. It has a good magical realist premise, more realist than magical. It has an earnest but fallible protagonist, Zal, with an incredible back story. It's a great coming of age novel set against the backdrop of the years preceding 9/11. It has a troubled love story where both participants aren't totally sold on the epic-ness of their entanglement. Zal actually has an on off love longing for Asiya's sister, the over-obese Willa. It's refreshing. It's lyrical and descriptive.
Yet, it also has the Brad Silber illusion element that grated on my nerves. It's a major part of the book, and I understand why it is there, but that didn't endear it to me. While I enjoyed the realistic messiness of Zal and Asiya's on again off again romance, they went on and off too many times in a short book. After a while it became difficult to keep unraveling their tangled skeins and more difficult to care if they ever got back together. I'm also a little tired of so many books set in New York City, even though I love the city itself.
All in all, it's an interesting book, but ultimately a tiny bit of a disappointment. But Khakpour writes well, and her ideas are interesting enough for me to seek out more of her writing. 3 stars.
I received a copy of this book for review, via NetGalley.
Yet, it also has the Brad Silber illusion element that grated on my nerves. It's a major part of the book, and I understand why it is there, but that didn't endear it to me. While I enjoyed the realistic messiness of Zal and Asiya's on again off again romance, they went on and off too many times in a short book. After a while it became difficult to keep unraveling their tangled skeins and more difficult to care if they ever got back together. I'm also a little tired of so many books set in New York City, even though I love the city itself.
All in all, it's an interesting book, but ultimately a tiny bit of a disappointment. But Khakpour writes well, and her ideas are interesting enough for me to seek out more of her writing. 3 stars.
I received a copy of this book for review, via NetGalley.
January 10, 2015
This is a highly symbolic work about two very damaged people: Zal, a boy whose mentally ill mother profoundly neglected him and raised him among birds, and Asiya, another abandoned child, who suffers from frequent panic attacks and has very specific visions about the 9/11 attacks in New York. Before they happen. Together, Zal and Asiya try to be "normal" young adults, with limited success.
I found The Last Illusion to be well-done, even funny in parts, and I could tell the author was accomplished at doing what she set out to do. The situation, however seemed contrived and the symbolism overwhelmed the work.
I found The Last Illusion to be well-done, even funny in parts, and I could tell the author was accomplished at doing what she set out to do. The situation, however seemed contrived and the symbolism overwhelmed the work.
July 6, 2014
More like 3.5 stars. The book started out strong, but lost me toward the end. The author tries to make a strong tie to 9/11 but it was too overblown and symbolic for me. The main characters, Zal and Asiya, are strange outcasts who find comfort in one another, and I liked that. I believe their relationship, but their circumstances and lives felt too strange and labored. An interesting read, but ultimately not satisfying.
April 30, 2015
*2.5*
Ugh. I'm really torn on this book. I really liked it in the beginning. The writing style is different and a little disjointed, but it worked for me. I like the modern spin on old mythology. But then about a third of the way through it just started to drag for me. I still liked the writing but it felt repetitive and I found the characters to be frustrating. Also I don't think the inclusion of 9/11 or the way it was portrayed was particularly well done.
Ugh. I'm really torn on this book. I really liked it in the beginning. The writing style is different and a little disjointed, but it worked for me. I like the modern spin on old mythology. But then about a third of the way through it just started to drag for me. I still liked the writing but it felt repetitive and I found the characters to be frustrating. Also I don't think the inclusion of 9/11 or the way it was portrayed was particularly well done.
March 19, 2014
From the critically acclaimed authors of "Sons and Other Flammable Objects" comes a bold fabulist novel about a feral boy coming of age in New York, based on the legend from the medieval Persian epic The Shahnameh, the Book of Kings.
August 19, 2014
Lush, sultry, inventive, and sadly overlooked. Nothing out there this spring/summer quite like it.
February 10, 2015
this book is fantastic. i feel i should start from the beginning and read the whole thing again.
September 8, 2021
Zal’s beginnings are truly bizarre—being raised as a bird when you’re a growing human being will do that for you. The efforts to rehabilitate him and get him to function as a human being are interesting, too, if swiftly glossed over by the author.
However, once he’s free of his cage, the fun begins—or not. Zal can’t laugh or smile, a situation supposedly common to many feral children. But Zal’s efforts to be normal lead him down many twisted paths. Normalcy is a nebulous target, like being “rich enough” or popular. The slightest thing can shake you from your pillar or have you labeled a freak, something Zal finds out all too often.
Zal’s view of the world around him is mainly a closed-in one, since he’s preoccupied in worrying about how people will see him. His choices revolve around hiding his entomophagy (insect-eating habits), his quirky beginnings and shameful obsessions about birds and cages. This gives the novel a claustrophobic feel, especially when Zal dips into depression, refusing to leave his home. He shuttles back and forth between what feels like narrow enclosures consisting of tiny rooms or a series of dead-end jobs.
This novel struggles for portent and meaning and yet winds up meaning very little at all. The ending left me feeling curiously disappointed and let down in some way. A few of the main characters try so hard to bring meaning to their lives, often in exaggerated ways, that the finale is both overblown and deflated as a popped balloon. Zal gets a weird, maddening girlfriend, obtains and loses employment and quarrels with his father. In the end, the reader realizes that Zal is normal, i.e., he’s just as screwed up as everybody else. So why all the fuss?
However, once he’s free of his cage, the fun begins—or not. Zal can’t laugh or smile, a situation supposedly common to many feral children. But Zal’s efforts to be normal lead him down many twisted paths. Normalcy is a nebulous target, like being “rich enough” or popular. The slightest thing can shake you from your pillar or have you labeled a freak, something Zal finds out all too often.
Zal’s view of the world around him is mainly a closed-in one, since he’s preoccupied in worrying about how people will see him. His choices revolve around hiding his entomophagy (insect-eating habits), his quirky beginnings and shameful obsessions about birds and cages. This gives the novel a claustrophobic feel, especially when Zal dips into depression, refusing to leave his home. He shuttles back and forth between what feels like narrow enclosures consisting of tiny rooms or a series of dead-end jobs.
This novel struggles for portent and meaning and yet winds up meaning very little at all. The ending left me feeling curiously disappointed and let down in some way. A few of the main characters try so hard to bring meaning to their lives, often in exaggerated ways, that the finale is both overblown and deflated as a popped balloon. Zal gets a weird, maddening girlfriend, obtains and loses employment and quarrels with his father. In the end, the reader realizes that Zal is normal, i.e., he’s just as screwed up as everybody else. So why all the fuss?
March 21, 2017
This is the sort of book that sounds better conceptually than it works out in execution. A slightly mythical story of a boy who spent his first ten years in a birdcage and grew up to become a man just trying to be a “normal human” sound good, and that was the book I was ready to read. Yet, oddly enough, the event in Porochista Khakpour’s The Last Illusion that gives its protagonist his desired normalcy was…the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center?
Possibly, there is some great symbolic statement in all this, but I didn’t find it. For me, The Last Illusion was 100 pages of interesting set-up that gave way to 200 pages of an iffy plot slowly circling the drain as 9/11 approached. Khakpour spent so much time in the build-up—foreboding visions, etc.—that the final pages fell spectacularly flat.
Not to mention that I’m somewhat uncomfortable that the protagonist’s journey toward fulfillment and happiness culminated amidst one of the more tragic things to have happened in the United States in the 21st century. Like, here we have a nation in shock as thousands of people die, and over here we have our protagonist, Zal, grinning like a fool because he’s just realized his life’s goal.
Does this seem potentially insensitive to anyone else?
Like I said, this book has a good premise. If The Last Illusion had stuck with the boy-in-a-birdcade storyline more and had less of the “highly symbolic” and overwritten 9/11 stuff, I would have enjoyed things much more. As it is, I’m vaguely troubled by what Khakpour has done with this.
Possibly, there is some great symbolic statement in all this, but I didn’t find it. For me, The Last Illusion was 100 pages of interesting set-up that gave way to 200 pages of an iffy plot slowly circling the drain as 9/11 approached. Khakpour spent so much time in the build-up—foreboding visions, etc.—that the final pages fell spectacularly flat.
Not to mention that I’m somewhat uncomfortable that the protagonist’s journey toward fulfillment and happiness culminated amidst one of the more tragic things to have happened in the United States in the 21st century. Like, here we have a nation in shock as thousands of people die, and over here we have our protagonist, Zal, grinning like a fool because he’s just realized his life’s goal.
Does this seem potentially insensitive to anyone else?
Like I said, this book has a good premise. If The Last Illusion had stuck with the boy-in-a-birdcade storyline more and had less of the “highly symbolic” and overwritten 9/11 stuff, I would have enjoyed things much more. As it is, I’m vaguely troubled by what Khakpour has done with this.
October 4, 2014
Found this book somewhat "out there". Didn't like the fact that the author chose an event of such magnitude to construct her story around. She seemed to have made light of the fact that the event had even happened and at such an horrific rate of death. I might be a bit blind here, but this didn't appeal to me at all really - I've given it one star just to say I've read it. Not my cup of tea.
January 19, 2018
A post-911 novel based on a Persian myth.
I really need to ignore the “average rating” number on Goodreads. I like to pick my next read based on many different sorts of my TBR list (currently 214 books). A few days ago, I decided to pick the book with the lowest average rating (3.40) which was The Last Illusion. Needless to say, it was a 5-star book in my opinion. This has happened to me more than once. Apparently, my taste in literature is beyond the norm. 🤓
Zal is a character I will never forget.
I really need to ignore the “average rating” number on Goodreads. I like to pick my next read based on many different sorts of my TBR list (currently 214 books). A few days ago, I decided to pick the book with the lowest average rating (3.40) which was The Last Illusion. Needless to say, it was a 5-star book in my opinion. This has happened to me more than once. Apparently, my taste in literature is beyond the norm. 🤓
Zal is a character I will never forget.
December 9, 2019
Pe cât de cruda pe atât și de genială.
February 1, 2021
I loved the premise of this book, but it seemed to drag.
May 19, 2015
The Last Illusion is a novel about the collision between myth and reality. Main character Zal is an albino boy born in Iran. His mother is disgusted by her son's condition, and becomes convinced that Zal is cursed because he was conceived on his father's deathbed. She descends into madness and locks him into a cage on the veranda, where he grows up among caged canaries and parrots. When Zal is eventually rescued, he is a 'feral child', unable to speak, walk or smile. After repatriation to New York and extensive rehabilitation, Zal is taught to speak and behave like a 'normal person' in all respects but one- he still can't smile.
Like Pinocchio, Zal yearns to be a 'real boy'. (In fact, he's far more functional than he really should be, coming across at 21 more as a very sheltered young man with autistic tendencies rather than the survivor of unimaginable trauma.) But Zal is on a quest to become a normal person, a normal man, by the contemporary American definition of those words. He teaches himself to get drunk, to swear, to have sex, to work a job, to be in a relationship. Zal's transition from an unworldly boy to a tormented adult seems like a condemnation of 'normality' in the modern world and particularly in America. The reader is left wondering whether he was perhaps better off as a feral child.
Zal still feels inwardly more bird than human, a tendency that manifests in wanting to eat insects (despite the fact not all birds are insectivorous), being repulsed by the idea of chicken or eggs as food (despite the fact lots of birds would eat chicken, hawks for instance) and of course, wanting to fly...
The latter desire leads to a subplot involving circuses, dead birds, prophecy, and as the book is set in New York between 1999 and 2001, the destruction of the Twin Towers. I really didn't care for the September 11th plotline, finding it creepy and appropriative, and ultimately it seems to The circus angle also didn't really work for me, as flight-obsessed people and creepy ringmasters all seem like a pale echo of Angela Carter's magnificent Nights at the Circus.
The novel really comes to life (for me at least) when Zal meets the anorexic, death-fixated Asiya, who changed her name from Daisy because she once dated a Muslim guy. Asiya is very mentally ill, very difficult and very much her own person. Her strangeness forms a counterweight to Zal's own, and the love triangle that forms between her, Zal and her bedridden sister Willa forms the most compelling part of the book.
I haven't read the Shahnameh, the Iranian Book of Kings, and I think that reading that particular work beforehand would probably have greatly enhanced my appreciation of the symbolism of The Last Illusion, particularly the significance of Zal's arch-rival being a magician. Zal's early life has strong parallels with a legendary Persian hero, also called Zal, who was abandoned and raised by an eagle on a mountaintop.
Unlike a lot of other fictional works that use myth as a motif, the characters in The Last Illusion frequently comment on the similarities between Zal's life and the legend. Zal himself compares himself negatively to his mythological counterpart, who fights monsters and rescues maidens. But perhaps the two Zals aren't really so different...
The Last Illusion is about the way people derive strength and meaning from living their lives with reference to myth, legend, history and literature, and the way real life must always be disappointing and messy compared to the simple world of myth. It's a flawed book, but its qualities far outweigh its weaknesses.
Like Pinocchio, Zal yearns to be a 'real boy'. (In fact, he's far more functional than he really should be, coming across at 21 more as a very sheltered young man with autistic tendencies rather than the survivor of unimaginable trauma.) But Zal is on a quest to become a normal person, a normal man, by the contemporary American definition of those words. He teaches himself to get drunk, to swear, to have sex, to work a job, to be in a relationship. Zal's transition from an unworldly boy to a tormented adult seems like a condemnation of 'normality' in the modern world and particularly in America. The reader is left wondering whether he was perhaps better off as a feral child.
Zal still feels inwardly more bird than human, a tendency that manifests in wanting to eat insects (despite the fact not all birds are insectivorous), being repulsed by the idea of chicken or eggs as food (despite the fact lots of birds would eat chicken, hawks for instance) and of course, wanting to fly...
The latter desire leads to a subplot involving circuses, dead birds, prophecy, and as the book is set in New York between 1999 and 2001, the destruction of the Twin Towers. I really didn't care for the September 11th plotline, finding it creepy and appropriative, and ultimately it seems to The circus angle also didn't really work for me, as flight-obsessed people and creepy ringmasters all seem like a pale echo of Angela Carter's magnificent Nights at the Circus.
The novel really comes to life (for me at least) when Zal meets the anorexic, death-fixated Asiya, who changed her name from Daisy because she once dated a Muslim guy. Asiya is very mentally ill, very difficult and very much her own person. Her strangeness forms a counterweight to Zal's own, and the love triangle that forms between her, Zal and her bedridden sister Willa forms the most compelling part of the book.
I haven't read the Shahnameh, the Iranian Book of Kings, and I think that reading that particular work beforehand would probably have greatly enhanced my appreciation of the symbolism of The Last Illusion, particularly the significance of Zal's arch-rival being a magician. Zal's early life has strong parallels with a legendary Persian hero, also called Zal, who was abandoned and raised by an eagle on a mountaintop.
Unlike a lot of other fictional works that use myth as a motif, the characters in The Last Illusion frequently comment on the similarities between Zal's life and the legend. Zal himself compares himself negatively to his mythological counterpart, who fights monsters and rescues maidens. But perhaps the two Zals aren't really so different...
The Last Illusion is about the way people derive strength and meaning from living their lives with reference to myth, legend, history and literature, and the way real life must always be disappointing and messy compared to the simple world of myth. It's a flawed book, but its qualities far outweigh its weaknesses.
May 24, 2014
Zal is born in Iran with extremely pale skin and light coloured hair. His mother is convinced she has given birth to a ‘white demon’ and puts him in a cage where she raises him along with her menagerie of birds. He is finally rescued as a young adolescent by his sister and subsequently adopted by a behavioural analyst who takes him to New York. Zal tries to appear normal but he can’t escape his upbringing completely; he dreams of flying and hides his secret stash of candied insects from his adoptive father. Eventually, in his efforts to become more human, Zal leaves home. He meets a famous illusionist, Bran Silber (whose last illusion is referenced by the title) as well as a young artist, Asiya McDonald, who creates art from dead birds. Zal begins a relationship with Asiya who suffers from anorexia, panic attacks, and who may be psychic but it is Asiya’s sister, Willa, morbidly obese and bed-ridden, that he falls madly in love with. He tries but mostly fails at new adventures while he starts and loses several jobs including one at a pet store from which he is fired after developing feelings for a well-endowed canary.
The story takes place between 1999 when the world was obsessed with Y2K and 2001 and the fall of the Towers. The character, Zal, is taken from the Iranian Book of Kings in which an albino, Zal is abandoned, then raised by a giant eagle, and eventually becomes a great hero. But this modern Zal is not a hero at least not in any way except in his earnest attempts to escape his bird identity, to become human, to learn to smile but then the times he seems to occupy are not heroic either – it’s all illusion, freaks, hurtful encounters, made-up rules about the unknown and fears of possible future catastrophes - at least, that is, until the last illusion is shattered by the reality.
By combining myth, illusion, and reality, author Porochista Khakpour has created a beautifully crafted, original and lyrically told tale of New York and of the terrible tragedy that befell it. At times funny, sad, quirky, sympathetic and, in its treatment of the tragedy, respectful, The Last Illusion is the kind of story that mostly entertains, occasionally infuriates, but always makes you think, and it continues to resonate with the reader long after the final page is turned.
The story takes place between 1999 when the world was obsessed with Y2K and 2001 and the fall of the Towers. The character, Zal, is taken from the Iranian Book of Kings in which an albino, Zal is abandoned, then raised by a giant eagle, and eventually becomes a great hero. But this modern Zal is not a hero at least not in any way except in his earnest attempts to escape his bird identity, to become human, to learn to smile but then the times he seems to occupy are not heroic either – it’s all illusion, freaks, hurtful encounters, made-up rules about the unknown and fears of possible future catastrophes - at least, that is, until the last illusion is shattered by the reality.
By combining myth, illusion, and reality, author Porochista Khakpour has created a beautifully crafted, original and lyrically told tale of New York and of the terrible tragedy that befell it. At times funny, sad, quirky, sympathetic and, in its treatment of the tragedy, respectful, The Last Illusion is the kind of story that mostly entertains, occasionally infuriates, but always makes you think, and it continues to resonate with the reader long after the final page is turned.
February 29, 2024
I discovered THE LAST ILLUSION by Porochista Khakpour on an end-cap display at my local library. Is that what they call it? It was on display at the end of one of the stacks. Anyway, I was drawn to its cover: a glitchy, surreal mishmash of colors on a deep red background and with yellow text overlaying it. Then I read a quick synopsis and saw that it was about a boy who was raised as a bird and that seemed interesting enough. I was just going to add it to my WTRs for later, but then I thought: “I’m already here. Why not just check it out now?” So I did. And so… well, here we are.
Let me begin by saying that I struggled with whether to give this two or three Goodreads stars. It’s probably fair to say that it’s a 2.5-star rating either way. The book is about a boy, Zal Hendricks, who was initially mistreated by his mother and raised “as” a bird in a cage for the first 10-12 years of his life. After that, he is adopted by a kind-hearted American child psychologist and the majority of the book is about Zal’s attempts as a young adult to reintegrate into society and escape the psychological weight of his avian past. This is primarily filtered through a codependent relationship he forms with an equally damaged woman, Asiya McDonald, who is dangerously anorexic, alternately intimate and distant with Zal, and who has visions of a horrible tragedy in the near future. Oh, did I mention that the bulk of the book takes place in New York City between the years 1999 and 2001? In case what I’m getting at isn’t clear enough to you, please note there is also a magician named Bran Silber who has a large role in the book who is planning a major magic trick—the “last illusion”, if you will—which he hints will involve deconstructing something symbolic of New York and America generally… taking it down, if you know what I mean. That’s right: it’s a 9/11 book. I guess I should also say that it’s apparently a modern retelling of an Iranian myth, though I’m not sure if it’s so much a retelling as it is loosely inspired.
In any case, I mean, I do like the general concept of this guy who has a rather traumatic backstory trying to come to terms with it and live as an adult in a healthy way. I even like—again, in the abstract—the idea that Zal winds up in a dysfunctional relationship with Asiya which is kind of toxic but something he doesn’t know how to live either with or without. There’s also a genuinely touching side narrative about his adoptive father’s uncertainty about how much to shelter Zal and how much to, er… let him spread his wings, I guess. There are things here that have something going for them.
But then, the relationship between Zal and Asiya becomes so repetitive, without any real sense of relational or narrative growth. Zal also has an odd crush on Asiya’s sister Willa, who in contradiction to Asiya could eat no lean: that is, she’s morbidly obese. Why Zal has feelings for either of these women is not well-explored. For Willa especially, his attraction to her is purely physical and beyond a suggestion that her heft makes her “grounded” versus his flighty nature, in a metaphorical sense, it is impossible to understand why this obsession persists. Then there’s Silber, the magician; he appears early on in the story performing a trick that involves mimicking flight which Zal is excited by at first but quickly becomes disillusioned when he realizes that it is, at base, a trick. I suppose maybe there’s something there about… being taken in by hucksters? After this, he mostly dips out of the story until returning closer to the end as the 9/11 thing ramps up. Overall, though, I’m at a loss as to what the importance of this character is. Moreover, returning to the 9/11 thing, I’m at a loss as to why the book needed to go there in the first place.
As it dawned on me that the book intended to culminate in the 2001 terrorist attack, I worried that Khakpour wasn’t capable of handling it with the grace and sensitivity the topic demands. I wondered if perhaps this would prove to actually be an alternate universe in which the towers did not in fact fall. At first, it does seem like that is where the book is headed as there is a fake-out in which Silber’s magic act truly does make the World Trade Center towers disappear—poof!—into thin air. But then that’s upended as a dream, I guess, and the actual reality of 9/11 occurs. It’s not especially well characterized, though there is a sort of poignant moment where two people who survived embrace each other laughing at their good fortune while everybody else around them runs in panic and terror. It culminates in Zal smiling, something he’s been physically unable to do for the length of the book. Why this, of all things, should lead to his smile is hard to pinpoint. It seems like so much of the book is pushing this idea that he needs to accept his idiosyncracies as a variation on “normal”, that there is no true platonic ideal of “normal” to attain, that we all have our own baggage and that doesn’t make Zal any more of a “freak” than the rest of us. So what does this ending accomplish toward that theme? Or, alternately, I imagined a finale which leans more into his continuous returning to his bird brain. Something where he somehow finds himself in flight at the book’s close. As it is, it’s difficult to make out what the point of the book was exactly.
I didn’t take any notes while reading this book as I often do. I didn’t feel like there was anything particularly worth saving. Some other reviewers on Goodreads claim Khakpour’s writing is lyrical, that there’s instances of beauty in her words. I’m not saying there’s not; I’m just saying that none seized me enough that I felt the urge to write them down.
Before I wrote book reviews on Goodreads, I wrote movie reviews on my own website and, before that, on the Flixter app on Facebook (years and years ago when that was a thing). I’ve always prided myself on awarding stars judiciously, trying to have a clear view of where a work falls on a 5-star scale and what the rating means. It’s a little harder with Goodreads not allowing half-stars, but I still take the rating very seriously. Often, I help myself determine how to rate books by comparing it to other books I’ve read and rated in the past: does this book feel more like Book A, which I rated on the lower end of the scale, or Book B which I rated on the higher end? The most recent title that I gave 2 Goodreads stars was RIPE by Sarah Rose Etter. I would say that I actively disliked that book. One of my most recent 3-star rating was for FINNA by Nino Cipri, a book which I thought had a few good elements but for the most part kind of squandered the promise of its premise. Comparing THE LAST ILLUSION to these two books, it was clear to me that the 3-star rating was more appropriate. I definitely would not say that I disliked this book; my feeling is very similar to my feelings on FINNA. There’s some interesting ideas here, even a handful of things that do click, but unfortunately overall it just didn’t really come together for me.
Let me begin by saying that I struggled with whether to give this two or three Goodreads stars. It’s probably fair to say that it’s a 2.5-star rating either way. The book is about a boy, Zal Hendricks, who was initially mistreated by his mother and raised “as” a bird in a cage for the first 10-12 years of his life. After that, he is adopted by a kind-hearted American child psychologist and the majority of the book is about Zal’s attempts as a young adult to reintegrate into society and escape the psychological weight of his avian past. This is primarily filtered through a codependent relationship he forms with an equally damaged woman, Asiya McDonald, who is dangerously anorexic, alternately intimate and distant with Zal, and who has visions of a horrible tragedy in the near future. Oh, did I mention that the bulk of the book takes place in New York City between the years 1999 and 2001? In case what I’m getting at isn’t clear enough to you, please note there is also a magician named Bran Silber who has a large role in the book who is planning a major magic trick—the “last illusion”, if you will—which he hints will involve deconstructing something symbolic of New York and America generally… taking it down, if you know what I mean. That’s right: it’s a 9/11 book. I guess I should also say that it’s apparently a modern retelling of an Iranian myth, though I’m not sure if it’s so much a retelling as it is loosely inspired.
In any case, I mean, I do like the general concept of this guy who has a rather traumatic backstory trying to come to terms with it and live as an adult in a healthy way. I even like—again, in the abstract—the idea that Zal winds up in a dysfunctional relationship with Asiya which is kind of toxic but something he doesn’t know how to live either with or without. There’s also a genuinely touching side narrative about his adoptive father’s uncertainty about how much to shelter Zal and how much to, er… let him spread his wings, I guess. There are things here that have something going for them.
But then, the relationship between Zal and Asiya becomes so repetitive, without any real sense of relational or narrative growth. Zal also has an odd crush on Asiya’s sister Willa, who in contradiction to Asiya could eat no lean: that is, she’s morbidly obese. Why Zal has feelings for either of these women is not well-explored. For Willa especially, his attraction to her is purely physical and beyond a suggestion that her heft makes her “grounded” versus his flighty nature, in a metaphorical sense, it is impossible to understand why this obsession persists. Then there’s Silber, the magician; he appears early on in the story performing a trick that involves mimicking flight which Zal is excited by at first but quickly becomes disillusioned when he realizes that it is, at base, a trick. I suppose maybe there’s something there about… being taken in by hucksters? After this, he mostly dips out of the story until returning closer to the end as the 9/11 thing ramps up. Overall, though, I’m at a loss as to what the importance of this character is. Moreover, returning to the 9/11 thing, I’m at a loss as to why the book needed to go there in the first place.
As it dawned on me that the book intended to culminate in the 2001 terrorist attack, I worried that Khakpour wasn’t capable of handling it with the grace and sensitivity the topic demands. I wondered if perhaps this would prove to actually be an alternate universe in which the towers did not in fact fall. At first, it does seem like that is where the book is headed as there is a fake-out in which Silber’s magic act truly does make the World Trade Center towers disappear—poof!—into thin air. But then that’s upended as a dream, I guess, and the actual reality of 9/11 occurs. It’s not especially well characterized, though there is a sort of poignant moment where two people who survived embrace each other laughing at their good fortune while everybody else around them runs in panic and terror. It culminates in Zal smiling, something he’s been physically unable to do for the length of the book. Why this, of all things, should lead to his smile is hard to pinpoint. It seems like so much of the book is pushing this idea that he needs to accept his idiosyncracies as a variation on “normal”, that there is no true platonic ideal of “normal” to attain, that we all have our own baggage and that doesn’t make Zal any more of a “freak” than the rest of us. So what does this ending accomplish toward that theme? Or, alternately, I imagined a finale which leans more into his continuous returning to his bird brain. Something where he somehow finds himself in flight at the book’s close. As it is, it’s difficult to make out what the point of the book was exactly.
I didn’t take any notes while reading this book as I often do. I didn’t feel like there was anything particularly worth saving. Some other reviewers on Goodreads claim Khakpour’s writing is lyrical, that there’s instances of beauty in her words. I’m not saying there’s not; I’m just saying that none seized me enough that I felt the urge to write them down.
Before I wrote book reviews on Goodreads, I wrote movie reviews on my own website and, before that, on the Flixter app on Facebook (years and years ago when that was a thing). I’ve always prided myself on awarding stars judiciously, trying to have a clear view of where a work falls on a 5-star scale and what the rating means. It’s a little harder with Goodreads not allowing half-stars, but I still take the rating very seriously. Often, I help myself determine how to rate books by comparing it to other books I’ve read and rated in the past: does this book feel more like Book A, which I rated on the lower end of the scale, or Book B which I rated on the higher end? The most recent title that I gave 2 Goodreads stars was RIPE by Sarah Rose Etter. I would say that I actively disliked that book. One of my most recent 3-star rating was for FINNA by Nino Cipri, a book which I thought had a few good elements but for the most part kind of squandered the promise of its premise. Comparing THE LAST ILLUSION to these two books, it was clear to me that the 3-star rating was more appropriate. I definitely would not say that I disliked this book; my feeling is very similar to my feelings on FINNA. There’s some interesting ideas here, even a handful of things that do click, but unfortunately overall it just didn’t really come together for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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April 29, 2015A feral boy coming of age in New York, based on a legend from the medieval Persian epic The Shahnameh, the Book of Kings.
Porochista Khakpour certainly crafts quite a yarn. Her prose flows with fluidity, it’s magical in its own right. Imaginative, creative and downright beautiful.
A patchwork of characters leaving you questioning this amazing tale, but somehow through the gorgeous and ugly wreckage Khakpour fuses a bird boy, a clairvoyant and a illusionist made of smoke and mirrors and I’m barely scratching the surface. You will feel overwhelmed, a dichotomy of emotions ruling as the story unravels as if a ball of yarn rolling down the steepest incline.
Magical realism, myth, legend and love create a memorable coming of age story of Zal, a young man desperately trying to find a normal place in this chaotic crazy world. You’ll find yourself questioning what is normalicy as we follow Zal on his incredible journey.
More than a story, Khakpour’s language creates an experience for the peruser. Dramatic with insertions of wry humor, topics fade and shine in their own magical way, dark becomes light, light becomes dusk. A wonderful read of history blending with a dose of fiction, legend and reality all collide forming a starburst. Highly recommend this unique read. Looking forward to reading more from this undoubtedly talented authoress.
For this and other reviews visit http://ravenhairedgirl.com
Porochista Khakpour certainly crafts quite a yarn. Her prose flows with fluidity, it’s magical in its own right. Imaginative, creative and downright beautiful.
A patchwork of characters leaving you questioning this amazing tale, but somehow through the gorgeous and ugly wreckage Khakpour fuses a bird boy, a clairvoyant and a illusionist made of smoke and mirrors and I’m barely scratching the surface. You will feel overwhelmed, a dichotomy of emotions ruling as the story unravels as if a ball of yarn rolling down the steepest incline.
Magical realism, myth, legend and love create a memorable coming of age story of Zal, a young man desperately trying to find a normal place in this chaotic crazy world. You’ll find yourself questioning what is normalicy as we follow Zal on his incredible journey.
More than a story, Khakpour’s language creates an experience for the peruser. Dramatic with insertions of wry humor, topics fade and shine in their own magical way, dark becomes light, light becomes dusk. A wonderful read of history blending with a dose of fiction, legend and reality all collide forming a starburst. Highly recommend this unique read. Looking forward to reading more from this undoubtedly talented authoress.
For this and other reviews visit http://ravenhairedgirl.com
May 18, 2019
The Last Illusion is a rather exotic novel: it’s a strange melange of magic and realism, and although it’s set in New York, its defining myth comes from Iranian legend. The characters are all outsiders, and the central character, a feral child, is incapable of that most basic of human feelings, love.
Bringing all these elements together is a risky endeavour for a novelist, but somehow Porochista Khakpour pulls it off with panache.
Derived from a legend from the medieval Persian epic The Shahnameh, the Book of Kings, the central character in The Last Illusion bears the same name as the great hero of the legend, Zal, an albino who is abandoned in the wilderness and raised by a giant godlike bird. Like his namesake the novel’s Zal is born in Iran, and also like him the contemporary Zal’s too-white skin and blond hair makes him a freak in the rural village where he is born. But there the resemblances end. Zal does not grow up to be a great hero: thought to be a White Demon, he is raised in a cage with his mother’s pet birds, and untouched by human hands till he is recued at the age of ten, Zal of the novel is a feral child.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/10/10/th...
Bringing all these elements together is a risky endeavour for a novelist, but somehow Porochista Khakpour pulls it off with panache.
Derived from a legend from the medieval Persian epic The Shahnameh, the Book of Kings, the central character in The Last Illusion bears the same name as the great hero of the legend, Zal, an albino who is abandoned in the wilderness and raised by a giant godlike bird. Like his namesake the novel’s Zal is born in Iran, and also like him the contemporary Zal’s too-white skin and blond hair makes him a freak in the rural village where he is born. But there the resemblances end. Zal does not grow up to be a great hero: thought to be a White Demon, he is raised in a cage with his mother’s pet birds, and untouched by human hands till he is recued at the age of ten, Zal of the novel is a feral child.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/10/10/th...
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