A while back I was trawling for books about male friendships, which is surprisingly (or not) a pretty tall ask. There’s like, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. If you narrow it further, and look for ownvoices it’s even more sparse. That being said, books about female friendships? DIME A DOZEN, in every flavor you’d like (toxic, childhood, best, broken, lifelong, etc etc).
One note that was promising–when looking for stories about male friendships, I did run into a wealth of novels about friendships-or-not-friendships-that-turned-into-love. It’s amazing that the literary world has embraced the coming of age stories and life stories of queer men! But sometimes, you aren’t look for a romance, but a platonic relationship.
Into this void steps this novel, which centers on two things: first, Darius’ Iranian culture and heritage, and his complicated feelings surrounding it. Second, Darius’ friendship with Sohrab (with, admittedly, some homoerotic?? tones, or at least what read as such to a western reader used to western norms around male/male interactions).
As someone who’s traditionally been sort of harsh on stories that center the Indian American experience as one of constant alienation and confusion, I should probably be similarly objective when it comes to stories of the [culture] American experience. But yet, here we are, utterly taken with Darius’ conflicted relationship with his Iranian family. I felt like I learnt so much about Persian culture, celebrated here in a way that feels joyous and celebratory instead of othering. And of course I am entirely taken by any story of dual culture kids who are out of place in their non-American culture due to language barriers.
As for the friendship, I loved it as well. Darius is given the space to be emotionally conflicted here as well, in a way that I often see female characters get to be. He’s sensitive to teasing, and he’s hurt when Sohrab joins in. He feels like he’s not being a good enough friend and wants to do better. It’s all lovely, and I felt real pain when he left Iran.
There’s so much more here as well, packed into a pretty small novel–e.g., Darius’ relationship with his father, and their shared mental illness, and how stigma can occur even amongst people who have personal, first hand experience. Highly recommend this book!