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    A Good Country
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    A Good Country
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    A Good Country
    Ebook315 pages4 hours

    A Good Country

    By Laleh Khadivi

    4/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    _______________

    'Powerful, poignant, excellent' - Independent

    'Important' - Guardian

    'Stunning' - New York Times
    _______________

    The powerful, moving story of a California teenager from an immigrant family who, finding himself in an increasingly hostile world, is turned from a carefree surfer's life towards a culture of fear and fanaticism

    Fourteen-year-old Alireza Courdee contains multitudes. He is a straight-A student and an affable stoner; the high-achieving son of Iranian immigrants, and a Californian surf kid; Alireza, and just plain Rez. But when a terror incident shocks the nation – and then another, and another – Rez finds that the world has only one idea about the type of person he is; that his name and the colour of his skin make him an object of suspicion.

    But there are new friends to shine a light into Rez's isolated, angry existence – Arash, a fellow Muslim student, and the beautiful Fatima. Little by little, Rez is drawn into a new circle, a circle as troubling as it is consoling – and which has a grim and glorious mission in mind for him.

    Insightful, nuanced and timely, A Good Country is an unforgettable coming-of-age story which deftly captures a young man's alienation and search for identity in a flawed and violent world.
    _______________

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJun 29, 2017
    ISBN9781408876015
    Unavailable
    A Good Country
    Author

    Laleh Khadivi

    Laleh Khadivi was born in Esfahan, Iran, in 1977. In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution her family fled, finally settling in Canada and then the United States. Khadivi received her MFA from Mills College and was a Creative Writing Fellow in Fiction at Emory University. In 2008 she received The Whiting Writers' Award. In 2009 she published her first novel The Age of Orphans. Laleh Khadivi lives in California.

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    Reviews for A Good Country

    4/5

    21 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      California-born, Alireza Courdee, known to his friends as Rez, is fourteen when this story starts and nineteen when it finishes. The son of wealthy and successful first-generation immigrants (his father is a Kurd from Iran and his mother is from Syria) he has so far lived a privileged life, never knowing what it is to go without or to live in fear. Although he occasionally feels torn between two cultures, essentially he appears to be living the American dream, a dream and freedom his parents fled the Islamic Revolution to find. They have worked hard to achieve this and want Rez to appreciate his good fortune. His father is strict and unrelenting in the high standards he sets for his son, physically venting his rage on him when Rez gets a B in a school history test. Although Rez wants to do well and to eventually get to university, for now he just loves hanging-out with a group of white school-friends who have, apparently, accepted him into their tight-knit clique. Surfing, getting stoned and, hopefully, losing his virginity, now become more important priorities than constantly striving to excel at school, inevitably leading to increasing conflicts with his parents, particularly his father.However, in post-9/11 America and as the child of middle-eastern immigrants, a true sense of identity is hard to come by. A sudden falling-out with his white friends, the Boston Marathon bombing and then a terrorist attack on a shopping mall closer to home, all combine to expose how superficial his acceptance into the white community has been. He discovers that the colour of his skin, his religion, even though he is not a practising Muslim, and the fact that his parents are immigrants all lead to him being seen as a potential terrorist. This open hostility makes him feel rejected, confused, lost and isolated but new friends, Arash, a Muslim student, and the beautiful Fatima, draw him into a new circle which offers the promise of comfort and acceptance. However, it is a circle which will prove to be as disturbing as it is consoling. Through the eyes of Rez, Laleh Khadivi powerfully captures the struggles of a young adolescent whose sudden realisation that his acceptance in the community of his birth is so fragile, leaving him feeling very isolated and aimless, makes him look for alternative sources of acceptance, support and comfort. In a sensitive and insightful way, she drew me into Rez’s world. I could feel how his hurt, his anger, his confusion, all contributed to what felt like an inevitable journey towards radicalisation. Her thought-provoking observations about this process really brought home how a vulnerable, but idealistic, young person can be persuaded by promises of a truer, a better, a more worthwhile life. Rez had grown up with his father extolling America, and the opportunities it had offered him and his family, as “a good country”. However, when this was no longer Rez’s experience, he felt forced to seek an alternative “good country” and to go in search of his roots. In the early stages of the story I found it easy to identify with its exploration of the world of young people, with their mixture of careless hedonism, idealism, false bravado and underlying anxieties. I thought that she captured this journey towards an eventual coming of age in a convincing and evocative way, using the vernacular of this age group to very good effect. Her descriptions of the surfing, recreational use of drugs and almost frantic need for sexual exploration were equally convincing as a reflection of the increasingly fast-moving world adolescents are trying to negotiate.When the story became much more disturbing was when I felt thrust into the very different world Rez was starting to occupy, one where the conflicts he was facing were extreme and very disturbing. I had become so fond of him by this point that I wanted nothing more than to be able to protect him from people who were willing to exploit his confusion, innocence, idealism and naïvety. I wanted to stop him hurtling towards a point of no return. I wanted to “buy him time” on his journey towards adulthood and maturity. I think that the author captured this transition from idealism to fundamentalism in a way which felt psychologically convincing, and therefore deeply disturbing. Her descriptions of Rez’s experiences made me reflect on the sense of security you get by feeling that you belong absolutely in your community/country and whether, as an immigrant, or even the child of an immigrant, this absolute certainty is ever possible. If it isn’t, what are the possible ramifications of this feeling of rejection and marginalisation? I enjoyed Laleh Khadivi’s writing style, it is lyrical, almost poetic at times. However, her acute observations of a darker reality give it an edgy quality and it is this, combined with her unrelenting examination of the effects of alienation, which at times makes for an uncomfortable and disturbing reading experience. There is something very precise, yet nuanced, in her use of language which, for me, is encapsulated in her three epitaphs, which offer three definitions of the word “radical”. As soon as I read these I realised that the precision and complexity of language is probably very important to her in her search for authenticity in her story-telling. I enjoyed her vivid and convincing characterisations, with every single one of her characters seeming to leap off the page, demanding to be listened to. One thing which I initially found to be a bit confusing was the lack of punctuation for dialogue but once I had adjusted to this, I found that it in fact enabled me to feel much more intimately engaged with Rez’s thought-processes. This is the third book in a trilogy, with the first two being about the struggles faced by Rez’s grandfather and father, struggles which led to his father emigrating to America. Although this book can very easily be read as an unforgettable, stand-alone story, I think that I would have got even more from it had I read about the personal and historical influences which had shaped Rez’s family. However, A Good Country has made such an impression on me, with its examination of such a contemporary dilemma, that I will now read the first two books. I know that I will then welcome the opportunity to reread this one, thereby gaining a new, and deeper, perspective and understanding.
    • 4/5
      Reza “Rez” Courdee is the son of Iranian immigrants living the good life in Laguna Beach, California. Rez considers himself a typical American teenager, partying, dating girls, smoking pot, and surfing with his friends. When most of his American friends stop talking with him after a misunderstanding while on a surfing trip, he finds himself befriending other local Muslim kids. After several high-profile terrorist attacks on American soil, Rez feels isolated by the quiet suspicion of his schoolmates and neighbors. Feeling rejected by the country of his birth, he begins to withdraw deeper into his Muslim identity. The shift from revisiting his roots towards radicalization is subtle, but Rez soon finds himself walking the path of an extremist.This was an amazing book. I am still working through everything in it. Khadivi brings us into the life of a typical teenager, and then slowly unravels everything he formerly valued about himself to turn him into something darker. Perhaps the most startling thing for me was the illustration of the knife-edge existence of being “other.” When he is the typical American teen, he is accepted by his peers and neighbors to greater or lesser degrees. Neither he nor his parents are particularly religious, and he lives the life of a first generation American — strict parents who want to see him excel in his studies so he can grow up to fully realize the American Dream.With the loss of his American friends, he finds himself teased by his new Muslim friends. He is called a poser and a fake; someone who wanted to be American so badly he rejected his Muslim heritage. With the terrorist attacks making every Muslim seem suspect, the path of least resistance becomes sheltering in the one community that doesn’t look at him like he may have a bomb strapped to his chest. This then is the razor’s edge. Is he American or is he Muslim? With his country and community reeling from terror attacks and falling deeper into islamophobia, it appears more and more to Rez that he cannot be both.With this comes the impossible choice: does he cut himself off entirely from his past, his family’s history, and a large portion of his identity, or does he reject the country of his birth? In this story, Khadivi shows us that it is not necessarily hatred that drives the fall into extremism, sometimes it is hope: hope for a community that will not and cannot reject the seeker. And in trying to find this community, Rez falls afoul of evil men, men who are more than willing to prey on the uncertainty and vulnerability of teenagers to convince them that their hopes and dreams can be found at the end of a gun’s sights.The book is incredibly moving. We like Rez, we want so much for him to find his place in the world. We practically shout at the page for him not to listen to these people leading him down this dark path. We also see just how difficult it is to fight this kind of radicalization. One character talks of dominoes falling; a terrorist attack breeds new fear, which gives rise to more islamophobia, which pushes more people towards violent extremism. The cycle seems self-sustaining, and the governments of the world have been stymied in finding an effective method of ending it.This is an incredibly relevant book to read, especially now. In many ways, the book reminded me of Human Acts by Han Kang. The topics it deals with are difficult to face, but it is vital that we tackle this head-on, and try to break this cycle of violence. Perhaps one must ascend the hill traveled down on the path to extremism, and perhaps the climb becomes a bit easier with hope as your vehicle, rather than hatred.A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      This is a very topical novel, well written and well paced. It is the suspenseful story, set in contemporary times, of a few students in their last years at a private preparatory school in coastal Orange County, California. If you want to maintain the suspense, do not read this review.The end first. Three classmates, children of successful immigrant parents from Syria and Iran, forsake their acceptances at Stanford and U. Cal. Berkeley and move to Syria to help build the ISIS caliphate there. How did this happen? That is what the book is all about.The protagonist, Reza, comes from a non-practicing Muslim Iranian family and, indeed, hardly thinks of himself as a Muslim as the book begins. We see his attempts to fit in with the white, mostly surfing, crowd in his high school. Events change this. Terrorist incidents, including a fictional one of 83 deaths in an upscale Orange County shopping mall, contribute to his shunning by the white preppy kids and his increasing closeness to his Muslim classmates.On the internet Reza hears messages from imams such as this:"Brothers, the Prophet would implore you. Defend yourself. All around the world our men, women, and children are slaughtered for their devotions. Muslim men, Muslim women, Muslim children. If we sit aside, our sons will become usurers and our daughters prostitutes, our caliphate a lost dream."His best Muslim friend is expelled from the prep school, and loses his acceptance at Stanford, when an earlier incident of cheating (he assumed the identity of an older white schoolmate and, for a payment, took the SAT in his place) is revealed by the family that benefited from the subterfuge. This friend was driven further into his faith and was the first to aid the caliphate in Syria.As incidents of snubbing, discrimination and hatred continue, Reza studies Islam and becomes close to his girlfriend's Muslim family. Reza and Fatima decide in the summer after high school graduation to join the caliphate in Syria and to marry there. This, without telling their friends or families. They were wooed and coached in this decision by an internet propagandist from ISIS. He promised the couple that they would receive in Syria an apartment, jobs in their fields and a loving community in which to raise a family.Instead, in the last few pages of the book, when they are smuggled into Syria they are immediately separated, and Reza is forcibly trained as a fighter and is expected to fight, and very possibly die (and then join Allah as a martyr), in the civil war.Could this possibly happen to these wealthy, well-educated suburban American kids? The book's raison d'être is to provide a believable "Yes" to this question. You will have to decide whether it has done so.