Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America This new Readers Circle edition includes a reading group guide and a conversation between Firoozeh Dumas and Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner.”
In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father’s glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since.
Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas’s wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot.
In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies?—a complete mystery), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?—an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozeh’s parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don’t get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi).
Above all, this is an unforgettable story of identity, discovery, and the power of family love. It is a book that will leave us all laughing—without an accent.
Customer Review: Enjoyable Easy Read
The author has a knack for finding and telling the funny part of every situation. It was delightful to read her take on her experiences. Her tales are so entertaining, I was sad when the book was finished.
Thankfully, she has a new book out and I am ordering it NOW!
This is one book I will keep so I can reread stories whenever I need a good laugh.
It was refreshing to see how similar(in all the positive ways)families from differnt cultures actually are.
Customer Review: Brilliant, Touching, Laugh-Out-Loud Funny
I read this book while on vacation with my husband and our two boys (ages 11 and 8), then my older son read it out loud to all of us during the time we were traveling by car in Italy. All of us laughed out loud as we listened to Dumas’ touching and endearing, but oh-so-funny stories of her and her family’s experiences in America. She is poignant and honest and brilliant. Her stories reminded us that we often have more in common with those who may seem different from us than we realize, whether those people are from a different country or from our own extended families. Now that we are back in America, we cannot wait to read her new book!
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