Everything Sad is Untrue | Daniel Nayeri

"The quick version of this story is useless. Let's agree to have a complicated conversation. If you give me your attention-- I know it's valuable-- I promise I won't waste it with some 'poor me' tale of immigrant woe. 
I don't want your pity. 

If we can just rise to the challenge of communication-- here in the parlor of your mind-- we can maybe reach across time and space and every ordinary thing to see so deep into the heart of each other that you might agree that I am like you.  

I am ugly and I speak funny. I am poor.  My clothes are used and my food smells bad.  I pick my nose.  I don't know the jokes and stories you like, or the rules to the games.  I don't know what anybody wants from me.

But like you, I was made carefully, by a God who loved what He saw.

Like you, I want a friend." (15-16)

"This is a memory that has no sound, but probably it should have my Baba's laugh, which was such a rich and resonant chortle that it fills rooms of my memory that he was not even in." (31)

"Memories are tricky things.

They can fade or fester.

You have to seal them up tight like pickles and keep out impurities like how hurt you feel when you open them.  Or they'll ferment and poison your brain." (92)

"At church potlucks they play a secret game of dumping random cans of food in casserole dishes and pretending their grandmothers gave them the recipe.  Jell-O is their favorite. Campbell's mushroom Jell-O goes on everything. So does Veveeta, which is a cheese Jell-O that only sort of hardens." (96)

"There is an American filmmaker named Orson Welles who said, 'If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story." And Doctor Hamond (Pastor, not a doctor) says, 'It'll be alright in the end, folks. If it's not alright, then it's not the end,' which means Doctor Hamond thinks the world is going to end at his birthday party." (105)

"Does writing poetry make you brave? It is a good question to ask. I think making anything is a brave thing to do.  Not like fighting brave, obviously.  But a kind that looks at a horrible situation and doesn't crumble.

Making anything assumes there's a world worth making it for.  That you'll have someplace, like a clown's pants, to hide it when people come to take it away.

I guess I'm saying making something is a hopeful thing to do.

And being hopeful in a world of pain is either brave or crazy." (121-122)

"It's always the same story but it happens a thousand different ways." (137)

"A patchwork memory is the shame of a refugee." (185)

"The legend of my mom is that she can't be stopped.  Now when you hit her.  Not when a whole country full of goons puts her in a cage.  Not even if you make her poor and try to kill her slowly in the little-by-little poison of sadness.  

And the legend is true.

I think because she fixed her eyes on something beyond the rivers of blood, to a beautiful place on the other side. 

How else would anybody do it?" (214)

"Reading is the act of listening and speaking at the same time, with someone you've never met, but love.  Even if you hate them, it's a loving thing to do.

You speak someone else's words to yourself, and hear them for the first time." (333)

***

Daniel Nayeri, you have written a book that sears to the very soul, that made me cry, laugh, and love you just as you invited me to do. I am in awe that this entire book is as welcoming and hospitable as if you had invited me into your home, as if your heart were an Iranian home itself, one which allowed me to come in and sit on your beautiful Persian rug and eat all of the best food. The entire book is an offering like that, of welcoming, warmth, and hope. And it's absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing and having the courage to bring the light of words to your experiences and memories. 5/5!

How High We Go in the Dark | Sequoia Nagamatsu

“In suffering, he said, we found our heart. In suffering, we found new traditions, a way forward.” (269)

"The very nature of my existence.. that I can help others in need, demands that I reinvent myself, though I still dream of my children." (281)

“I think it would be strange at this juncture for writers and readers to completely ignore what we’re going through, and I think more people are ready to articulate how we’ve already changed individually and as a society. What do we want to reclaim of a pre-COVID life? What do we never want to go back to? And perhaps most importantly, how can being pulled out of our old life give us an opportunity to reimagine a better future? … a novel like How High We Go in the Dark can be a part of those reflections.” (292)

“You told me sometimes people and places serve a purpose for a finite amount of time to help you think and grow and love and then you move on.” (248)

“Maybe this [letter] will be lost in a stack of your unopened mail; maybe you’ll read it and throw it away, saying it’s too late. Or maybe you’ll peek out your window and wonder about coming over and saying, Hey, me too. I’m hollow and cracked and imploding. All I do know is this: I will continue to wake up and tell my family I love them, something I never did enough when they were alive. I will go grocery shopping at midnight. I will tell strangers online that I’m sorry for their loss, and I will eventually wash the bedsheets and their clothes and be okay with a quiet home. Maybe, with help, I will wave at you when you cross the street. I will begin setting the table for one.” (218)

"By early 2020, as the COVID-19 crisis unfolded, I had been revising my novel with my agent for three-plus years, and we were preparing for submission. I had never been prouder of anything and feared my life’s work would be roundly rejected by editors. Would people still want to read a story about a plague? I’ve since come to realize that How High We Go in the Dark isn’t really about a virus at all; it’s about memory and love and resilience. It’s a book that reaches for a beating heart somewhere deep in the cosmos. And because of the ride in hate crimes and racism incidents targeting Asians amid the pandemic, I found it urgent to share stories of Asians and Asian Americans who aren’t the enemy or 'the other' but family, friends, and lovers who are just holding on like everybody else. 

Writing this novel changed me, and I hope that reading it might help inspire you (in some small way) to discover new paths for thinking about who we are, who we might be, and how we can better reach out for each other in the dark." (292)

****

4/5 I loved this book! I don't usually read science fiction, so I'm glad I have friends who help me branch out. The stories were so beautifully inter-connected. And the end just tied it all together that I still can't stop thinking about it.  I am so in agreement with the author that it is good to remember what we've changed and evolved to in our suffering, the power of love, and the resilience of the human spirit. 

The House on the Cerulean Sea | TJ Klune

 

"He couldn't believe it was only Wednesday.  And it was made worse when he realized it was actually Tuesday." (18)

"It's not fair," Linus said, staring off into nothing.  "The way some people can be.  But as long as you remember to be just and kind like I know you are, what those people think won't matter in the long run. Hate is loud, but I think you'll learn it's because it's only a few people shouting, desperate to be heard. You might not ever be able to change their minds, but so long as you remember you're not alone, you will overcome." (275-276).

"The little girl.  She wasn't scared of me.  She was nice.  She didn't care what I looked like.  That means she can make up her own mind.  Maybe that woman will tell her I'm bad.  And maybe she'll believe it.  Or maybe she won't believe it at all.  Arthur told me that in order to change the minds of many, you have to first start with the minds of a few.  She's just one person.  But so is the lady."  (268)

"..you can always judge a person by how they treat animals.  If there is cruelty, then that person should be avoided at all costs.  If there is kindness, I like to think it's the mark of a good soul." (209)

"Change always starts with the smallest of whispers.  Like-minded people building it up to a roar." (115)