Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler and I am a Science Teacher, STEAM facilitator, and coach in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri.
This is a true account of the author’s journey out of Iran with his mother and sister. With a minor stop in Italy, the family finds themself in Oklahoma. This novel has been selected to explore the 2024 Fall Read theme– Through the Eyes of a Child.
The state of red dirt, reservations/nations, food, and oil. It is where I was born and raised. It is because of my personal connection to this state, I was originally interested in this book. I enjoy reading novels that have settings and events I can personally identify with. At some points I caught myself disagreeing with the author based off my experiences being a Native Okie.
When he was saying all the things Oklahoma doesn’t have, like mountains, I was transported to the many summers spent in the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma hiking, playing sports, and appreciating nature. This mountain range is reported as the oldest formations between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountain ranges.
This may seem like an insignificant detail, but I think it connects to the author’s stories and also treatment in the book. His 11/12 year old self speaks tales of dining with the royalty of Abu Dhabi but the reader may wonder, along with the author, if it really was or if he is having enhanced stories as a side effect of escaping a religious death squad by fleeing to a foreign continent.
Many of his Oklahoma memories seem rooted in people not believing things he says. I saw it not as him telling untruths, but speaking without experience on a place he’s just arrived. Add in the fact that he is close to military bases post 9/11 I am sure the need to fit in and to “know things” only grows. I feel like this connects to his description of “a patchwork memory being the shame of refugees” - Nayeri.
I found it ironic that his family ended up in Oklahoma, a state literally populated on the haunches of relocated peoples. From many Native tribes being forcibly relocated from their ancestral homelands via the Trail of Tears, to families in and out of the various military bases, Nayeri was unknowingly, at the time, amongst a kind of majority. Like many of the reassigned, Daniel and his family persist through their story because of resilience and the understanding that what defines you and your attitude affects the others around you.
Choosing to exist in life everyday no matter if your classmates believe you, if a group places a death threat upon you for believing in another religion, or you find yourself thousands of miles from your first home in this world: that is the path of Daniel and his mother throughout many moments of in this autobiography. Just as it is the story of many others not just in Oklahoma, but around the world.
This is Jessica Sadler, and you are listening to the High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Book Club.
