´I like that Milani sounds like Milan´.
If everyone and their Persian cats will tell me I have to read a book because I don´t know what I am missing, I will most probably stubbornly don´t do it and let everyone know. But I made sometimes exceptions for books by authors that I usually follow and on topics I am very much interested in.
Tehrangeles, the book, is a name I stumbled upon every few book recommendations this year and some months before the end of the last year too. Designed to describe an area in Los Angeles inhabited by rich Iranians, the vaste majority emigrating to the US shortly after the Islamic Revolution took over Iran, the book is a delightful tragi-comical satire, populated with priviledged rich influencers reminding of Little Women, but in a 2020 Persian style.
I had access to the book by Porochista Khakpour, an author I very much appreciate and previously featured on my blog, in audiobook format read by the very versatile Mikaela Hoover and the author´s own mother, Manijeh Khakpour. It is the format that I would recommend, as it ads more life and that Persian Paris Hilton kind of vibe that I bet you cannot grasp otherwise.
Some may compare the book with the glamorous Shahs of Sunset, with a cast of character of a similar background, but after wathing 75% of the series and reading the book I may say that the comparison does not make justice to this very complex book. Social critique and racism markers should not be necessarily boring and serious. Sometimes irony and smart references may turn the critique into more useful and pertinent social tool.
The four little ladies of Milani families may be very diverse in personality, but they are all belonging to Milani, a family of hidden Persian origin, living careelessly in the 2020 America. But their life is fall from being easy. The sucessful influencer Roxanna is changing her birthday inorder to have a zodiac re-assignment, Mina is overachiever and until a certain point a closet Lesbian, Violet wants to shine in her modelling career while fighting severe eating disorders and Haylee is sliding down the conspirationist vortex. Their parents, Ali - or Al, just because it´s sounds more Italian for his over the roof successful pizza business - and Homa, darkly depressed, may be unable to always understand their children, but are ready to please them, even when they are about to be over-exposed to the world as Roxanna particularly insists to launch a family reality show in the vein of The Kardashians. Last but not least, the smart white cat that has a much better influencer potential anyway.
According to her own words, Khakpour researched the book for over a decade, and this meticulous care for providing both context - Iranian diaspora and weird influencer behavior, not necessarily in this orer - and plot development is obvious in the book. The book is using the influencer pretexte to outline immigrant fluid identities, often a choice following the majority social circumstances, but also makes parallels between different reactions to similar circumstances - the attitude about anti-polio vaccines vs. anti-Covid vaccines. It exposes conspirationist theories and irresponsible behaviors - throwing out of boredom a party in the middle of the pandemic - and foolish expectations to live more only because richer.
The prose avoids the linear development of an average story with and about influencers to upgrade to a grandiose novel of Iranian-Americans dreaming the dream - there are some very important oniric insertions - in a world itself taken over by unlikely lives better than lives.
Last but not least, Tehrangeles has a huge movie potential and a stunning cover as well - I had the chance to see the book in the bookstore and it feels as catchy as it looks in the photos.
This book really made my happy, that happiness only a book lover get to know when confronted with books that you intellectually love.
Rating: 5 stars
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