Everything Sad Is Untrue

Sima is Daniel’s mother, and to him, she is “the hero of this whole story, in case you were wondering. She always did what heroes do” (344). Sima’s religion caused their departure from Iran. She converted from Islam to Christianity after her sister got married in a church in London, but it was illegal to be Christian in Iran. When she continued to worship through an underground church, her life was threatened, and so they fled. In Iran, she was a doctor who had both a medical degree and a Ph.D., but in the United States, she is working to earn a different credential since her ability to practice was not accepted. As a result, she works different jobs where she can get hired.

Daniel details the fact that many sat and waited while in the refugee camp as they waited in Italy to go wherever they were headed next, but his mother refused to sit around. She made it feel as they lived there and wanted to make sure that they continued their education. Sima found a family that did home schooling, and it required her to take a two-hour bus ride and to spend what little money she had on school supplies. She and her children were not well-accepted, and they were forced to sit in the back of the room and erase the workbooks that the other children already used. They had very little time to finish for the school year, and so day after day, Sima erased. Daniel describes the experience for his mother as one in which “you can’t stop for rest. You can’t waste time with dignity” (310-311). This continues as she arrives in the U.S., where she is willing to sacrifice everything so that her children can have a good life. Even though her husband hits her, she stays with him for the benefits he provides to her children. It isn’t until they stand against him, and at the end of the novel, they are about to embark on a new life.

The way that Daniel describes his mother’s hope gives the novel its title. She experiences both the difficulty of their lives and anticipates the future, holding “[t]he hope that some final fantasy will come to pass that will make everything sad untrue” (346). This sentiment ends the novel on a hopeful note as Daniel looks to their next adventure with the understanding that everything difficult, he has experienced is the “cost of joy” (351).

Massoud Nayeri is Daniel’s father. He remained in Iran, and Daniel never explicitly mentions what the reason is for this. It is difficult for him, however, only speaking with his father over the phone once a month. During each call, Massoud tries to remind him of Persian myths and legends, afraid that his son is losing a sense of his history, just as Daniel is.

Massoud spent some time in prison for selling opium, which he also smuggles into England during Sima’s sister’s wedding by hiding it in the liner of their suitcase set. Daniel looks back with disgust on the smell of opium, which he believes was worse than that of the sewage he encountered when Ray made him find the crack in the waste system of their house.

Daniel’s relationship with Massoud is complicated because he now lives with a new wife who dislikes Massoud’s children. He is a figure that is larger than life in the memories Daniel has of him, but when he comes to visit, Daniel can’t help but think of him as small, a man whose “favorite myth [was] that he was everything to everybody” (336). Daniel thinks about this as a myth because he has not been everything to Daniel. Yet, Daniel is also grateful for the fact that his father was able to gain the attention of his classmates when he came to visit on the last day of school. He teases them and makes them laugh, bringing them baklava from Tehran, and making Daniel feel as though the other students believe him and believe the stories that Daniel has told.

Daniel’s final memory of his father is from when he takes Daniel and Dina to White Water Rapids, a waterpark in Oklahoma. There, he pays children to run errands for him, bringing him snacks and soda from the concessions stands, becoming “for one day […] the king of White Water Rapids” (342). This helps Daniel to understand that “myths are just legends that everybody agrees on, and legends are just stories that got bigger over time,” which is very much how he feels about his father (342).

Dina is Daniel’s sister, and she remains nameless for much of the novel. It isn’t until Daniel’s favorite memory of her is told that readers learn it. For him, the moment in which she stands up to Ray and refuses to leave when they know that he is about to hurt their mother is the moment that he most wants to remember. Up until that point, Dina remains in the background, the straight-A student with an entrepreneurial spirit who wishes to excel in the United States as her way of fitting in. This contrasts with Daniel, whose narration is very much is his attempt to fit in.