When Skateboards Will Be Free

Starred review from January 26, 2009
In this subtle yet bracing account of growing up in Pittsburgh as the child of two committed socialists during the 1970s and ’80s, Sayrafiezadeh offers up a solidly written memoir expanding on a piece he wrote for Granta
in 2005. The youngest son of an Iranian-born father and an American-Jewish mother, Sayrafiezadeh spent most of his life after age three as his mother’s emotional crutch after his father leaves to pursue a single-minded devotion to a cause that makes him “disappear behind this massive workload of revolution” and out of his son’s life. As Sayrafiezadeh moves from cheap to cheaper apartment with his fervently revolutionary mother, he comes to realize that his poverty “was intentional and self-inflicted... as opposed to a reality that could not be avoided”—so much so that his mother won’t get him a skateboard until “the revolution comes,” when “everyone will have a skateboard, because all skateboards will be free.” Sayrafiezadeh’s excellent memoir displays a sophistication and keen intelligence that allows him to walk the line between pain and humor without even seeming mawkish or cheaply cynical.

June 1, 2009
Adult/High School-This memoir is an extreme tale with a familiar teen themethe exchanging of a family's teachings of "truth" for the painfully won act of interpreting the world independently. Sayrafiezadeh is the son of an Iranian-born father (a professor portrayed as a human superhero) and an American Jewish mother (a college graduate who surrenders to a hopeless love and cause) who separated when he was nine months old but remained married for decades. Early on, the author suspected that he and his mother were "following a peculiar set of rules" dictated by the Socialist Workers Party, to which his parents belonged. The severe demands of Sayrafiezadeh's childhood, with its intentional and self-inflicted poverty, boiled down to an agonizing parade of do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do moments that will resonate with readers struggling to understand the boundaries and systems created by their own parents. Crisply written, the narrative skips through time and space, offering enough optimism throughout to reassure readers that personal triumph is possible. As a child, this outsider could only offer party lines in response to a teacher's questions, and for years he pursued an acting career. But he grew into a man who created his own worldview to make order out of chaos. This book is an education in socialism and history disguised as an accessible, smart story."Kate Dunlop Seamans, Colby-Sawyer College, New London, NH"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2009
Growing up in Pittsburgh and New York in the 1980s, Sad barely saw his Iranian dad, who left his Jewish American wife and went off to fight for world revolution in the U.S. and, later, wound up in prison in Iran. Not that Moms politics were any different, as she schleps the kid to raging political demos of the Socialist Workers Party and meetings in support of something or against something. And yet even while Sad is mouthing slogans and selling newspapers, it is the hurt, conflicts, and contradictions that drive his daily life, whether it is shame about his friendship with a racist classmate, longing for his dad (Sad keeps the unpronounceable colossal last name because it is their only connection), or watching his mom fall apart. The blend of socially conscious rhetoric with the sorrow and farce of daily detail is haunting, as true to the childs viewpoint as to that of the wry, successful American adult looking back nowfrom his dream job working for Martha Stewart. A memoir full of surprises.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)