What do you think?
Rate this book
American Estrangement: Stories
Said Sayrafiezadeh has been hailed by Philip Gourevitch as "a masterful storyteller working from deep in the American grain." His new collection of stories—some of which have appeared in The New Yorker, the Paris Review, and the Best American Short Stories—is set in a contemporary America full of the kind of emotionally bruised characters familiar to readers of Denis Johnson and George Saunders. These are people contending with internal struggles—a son’s fractured relationship with his father, the death of a mother, the loss of a job, drug addiction—even as they are battered by larger, often invisible, economic, political, and racial forces of American society.
Searing, intimate, often slyly funny, and always marked by a deep imaginative sympathy, American Estrangement is a testament to our addled times. It will cement Sayrafiezadeh’s reputation as one of the essential twenty-first-century American writers.
Searing, intimate, often slyly funny, and always marked by a deep imaginative sympathy, American Estrangement is a testament to our addled times. It will cement Sayrafiezadeh’s reputation as one of the essential twenty-first-century American writers.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published August 10, 2021
70 people are currently reading
2212 people want to read
About the author
Said Sayrafiezadeh
8 books130 followersSaïd Sayrafiezadeh is a memoirist, fiction writer and playwright. He is the author of the forthcoming story collection American Estrangement. His memoir, When Skateboards Will Be Free, was selected as one of the ten best books of the year by Dwight Garner of The New York Times, and his debut story collection, Brief Encounters With the Enemy, was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Fiction Prize.
His short stories and personal essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Best American Short Stories, Granta, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, and New American Stories, among other publications. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award for nonfiction and a Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers’ fiction fellowship.
Saïd lives in New York City with his wife, the artist Karen Mainenti, and serves on the board of directors for the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities and teaches creative writing at Columbia University, Hunter College and NYU, where he received an Outstanding Teaching Award.
His short stories and personal essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Best American Short Stories, Granta, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, and New American Stories, among other publications. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award for nonfiction and a Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers’ fiction fellowship.
Saïd lives in New York City with his wife, the artist Karen Mainenti, and serves on the board of directors for the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities and teaches creative writing at Columbia University, Hunter College and NYU, where he received an Outstanding Teaching Award.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
December 24, 2021
3.5 stars
"'When I dream,' he said, 'I dream big.' He seemed to view dreaming as an achievement in an of itself. He saw the size of failures as an indication of the size of his dreams. Dream small, fail small." -- from the story 'Fairground,' page 112
Sayafriezadeh's American Estrangement offers seven restrained and disparate short stories, each featuring contemplative first-person narration via the protagonists. There were two slow-burn and somewhat sci-fi in nature ('Scenic Route' and 'Fairground') which felt a little out of place, and one was downright uncomfortable with its use of pedophilia as a plot point ('Metaphor of the Falling Cat'), but the remaining four - 'Audition,' 'Last Meal at Whole Foods,' 'A,S,D,F,' and 'A Beginner's Guide to Estrangement' - were often very good, quietly touching on pervasive issues like trying to establish a firm career or the generational / cultural divide between grown children and their parents.
"'When I dream,' he said, 'I dream big.' He seemed to view dreaming as an achievement in an of itself. He saw the size of failures as an indication of the size of his dreams. Dream small, fail small." -- from the story 'Fairground,' page 112
Sayafriezadeh's American Estrangement offers seven restrained and disparate short stories, each featuring contemplative first-person narration via the protagonists. There were two slow-burn and somewhat sci-fi in nature ('Scenic Route' and 'Fairground') which felt a little out of place, and one was downright uncomfortable with its use of pedophilia as a plot point ('Metaphor of the Falling Cat'), but the remaining four - 'Audition,' 'Last Meal at Whole Foods,' 'A,S,D,F,' and 'A Beginner's Guide to Estrangement' - were often very good, quietly touching on pervasive issues like trying to establish a firm career or the generational / cultural divide between grown children and their parents.
July 20, 2021
This is a collection of short stories that focus on young men who are treading water in their lives, dealing with entry-level jobs, mothers dying of cancer and a general inability to have things go smoothly. But Saïd Sayrafiezadeh also fills these stories with ordinary pleasures and glimpses of hope; a man remembers when his mother buys him a shirt at Goodwill that gives him credibility at his new school or a young man stuck in a dead end job meets a girl he likes. Sayrafiezadeh doesn't mind making the reader uncomfortable or uncertain. He's writing about the working class, the marginalized and the discontented. And the stories are quietly perfect, from the clear and unobtrusive writing, to the way the author creates vivid settings within a single paragraph. This book reminded me of why I love short stories so much, that when they are well-crafted, they contain entire lives in single moments.
July 28, 2021
So many excellent story collections out this year! And American Estrangement is one of them.
Each story is completely unique and touches on different subjects, but to me, “work” plays a major part in most of them—the kind of work you have to do to survive, the kind of work you’d rather not be doing, or the kind of work you expected to be different, to be better.
I can’t think of any other word but real to describe this book. There’s an easiness, an effortlessness to Sayrafiezadeh’s style that helps bring his stories to life, literally. Every single sentence is beautiful.
“The truth is I’ve spent today the way I’ve spent most days, sitting behind the front desk for nine hours, less one hour for lunch, engulfed in a sea of silence and serenity, waiting for something to happen, while I gaze into the middle distance of white walls hung with abstract expressionism.”
Aren’t we all just waiting for something to happen, at any given moment?
I enjoyed his writing a lot. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book, to anyone.
Thanks to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for the advance copy of this book. American Estrangement will be published on August 10, 2021.
Each story is completely unique and touches on different subjects, but to me, “work” plays a major part in most of them—the kind of work you have to do to survive, the kind of work you’d rather not be doing, or the kind of work you expected to be different, to be better.
I can’t think of any other word but real to describe this book. There’s an easiness, an effortlessness to Sayrafiezadeh’s style that helps bring his stories to life, literally. Every single sentence is beautiful.
“The truth is I’ve spent today the way I’ve spent most days, sitting behind the front desk for nine hours, less one hour for lunch, engulfed in a sea of silence and serenity, waiting for something to happen, while I gaze into the middle distance of white walls hung with abstract expressionism.”
Aren’t we all just waiting for something to happen, at any given moment?
I enjoyed his writing a lot. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book, to anyone.
Thanks to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for the advance copy of this book. American Estrangement will be published on August 10, 2021.
September 4, 2021
Saïd Sayrafiezadeh’s American Estrangement is explained very fully in the last short story in this fine collection, “A Beginner’s Guide to Estrangement.”. One of my favorites is his “Last Meal at Whole Foods” which explores a tenuous relationship of a son to his dying mother. His symbolism of an exhibition pro football game by a losing team is beyond reproach. The locales are those we all might know: an apartment over a nail salon, a series of motels on a fatal relationship trip which has a deeper meaning, an almost horror. Then there is the loneliness of auditions which only prefigure a life of minor roles and unfilled promise. The only failure to me was “Fairground,” a semi-horror/fantasy parable about something or other which is not fully developed. The stories otherwise show a picture of America that is for the most part under the radar without catering to some of the hangnails of present America which one expects to be exploited. In other words, he writes about things that must be said about people we are not encountering in present day fiction. I will look forward to more from him.
August 30, 2021
4.5 ⭐ rounded up, because the stories are great, all except the first one, in my subjective opinion. The author tackles issues which are nearly universal, yet somehow rarely discussed: feelings of not fitting in, not just by other's standards, but more importantly, by our own nebulous ideas about what it means to have *made it*.
The author startles us into the realization that we keep score too often, and to an unreasonable degree. To win, you need someone else to lose, in fact, you need a whole big ol' group of losers you can float above with your shining winning self-made glow. Yet, what is success, and will we know when we get there? Will anyone affirm our having *arrived*? We can spend a lifetime trying to impress someone, and they may be gone before we get there. Who are we then, when our goals fall flat? No wonder we have no idea how we should feel about our past, present, and future. We're conflicted about what we are supposed to get out of life. We are conditioned to want to make something of ourselves, though most lives are largely mundane. This can make ordinary life feel like failure.
Beyond exposing the angst of the individual, and the fraught interactions among family and couples, the author examines group dynamics and the difficulty in shedding/using stereotypes. We are obsessed with categorization, making snap judgments and allowing our assumptions to drive our expectations. Our interactions with others can easily take on extra layers of tension, solely based on association-based triggers. There's an understood threat behind the query: "Where are you from?" or in my area: "You aren't from around here, are ya?" I mean, my ancestors came from cold inhospitable places, and for the most part, were cold inhospitable people, but I don't react defensively to every person from Nordic lands.
Sayrafiezadeh gives us a window into our selves, and exhorts us to both give ourselves a break, and cut others some slack. I'm looking forward to hearing much more from this talented writer and teacher.
The author startles us into the realization that we keep score too often, and to an unreasonable degree. To win, you need someone else to lose, in fact, you need a whole big ol' group of losers you can float above with your shining winning self-made glow. Yet, what is success, and will we know when we get there? Will anyone affirm our having *arrived*? We can spend a lifetime trying to impress someone, and they may be gone before we get there. Who are we then, when our goals fall flat? No wonder we have no idea how we should feel about our past, present, and future. We're conflicted about what we are supposed to get out of life. We are conditioned to want to make something of ourselves, though most lives are largely mundane. This can make ordinary life feel like failure.
Beyond exposing the angst of the individual, and the fraught interactions among family and couples, the author examines group dynamics and the difficulty in shedding/using stereotypes. We are obsessed with categorization, making snap judgments and allowing our assumptions to drive our expectations. Our interactions with others can easily take on extra layers of tension, solely based on association-based triggers. There's an understood threat behind the query: "Where are you from?" or in my area: "You aren't from around here, are ya?" I mean, my ancestors came from cold inhospitable places, and for the most part, were cold inhospitable people, but I don't react defensively to every person from Nordic lands.
Sayrafiezadeh gives us a window into our selves, and exhorts us to both give ourselves a break, and cut others some slack. I'm looking forward to hearing much more from this talented writer and teacher.
January 15, 2023
Collection of short stories, all written in the first person, that don't all conclude or wrap up in a satisfying punch, but the writing is so good, surprising and funny, that I didn't particularly care. The last story, a son visits his father in Iran, was amazing.
February 4, 2022
Excellent short stories, he has a great perspective on being a young American these days. Humor and sensitivity.
February 4, 2023
me: i want to read more short story collections
book: "the first time I smoked crack cocaine"
me: say no more
favs: audition, last meal at whole foods, metaphor of the falling cat, a,s,d,f
book: "the first time I smoked crack cocaine"
me: say no more
favs: audition, last meal at whole foods, metaphor of the falling cat, a,s,d,f
July 11, 2023
Five stars for the first story in Sayrafiezadeh's collection, I found it outstanding. All the stories are masterfully written, each a little differently, to impart varied senses of flat affect, if that's possible. But as I went on, I found the tone underwhelming.
May 11, 2021
Sayrafiezadeh is a talented writer, no doubt, and these are mostly good stories. If you're seeking stories that end all tied up in a neat bow look elsewhere. But I think a lot of literary fiction fans and serious readers will like this collection. It contains a variety of smart, creative stories with interesting, flawed, conflicted characters. Recommended for those seeking well-written short stories.
I really appreciate the ARC for review!!
I really appreciate the ARC for review!!
January 20, 2023
I feel very neutral about this collection. I think Saïd Sayrafiezadeh can write (the man clearly has oodles of talent!) but I didn’t emotionally connect with any of the stories.
June 1, 2023
I've been obsessed with "A, S, D, F" ever since I stumbled upon it in The New Yorker. To this day it is one of my favorite short stories and I knew I had to pick up this collection sooner or later. These stories are witty and subtly strange (for a couple of the stories their strangeness obscured what I was supposed to take away from it). Sayrafiezadeh does not bother easing you into his weird, little, realistic worlds, but he does deliver a familiar tone of cautious optimism despite what occurs throughout these stories.
"Basically, what the doctor is suggesting is that you shouldn't be wasting your time with make-believe stories about boys being pursued through abandoned hotels by men wielding mallets -speaking of metaphor. What you really need to be doing is 'coming to terms,' and you need to be doing it now. You have to start figuring out how the obsolete past is interfering with the inescapable present, ten, fifteen, twenty years later, particularly how it's interfering with your attempt at happiness. But the main impediment, as far as the doctor's concerned, is that you don't know how to figure any of this out, and the other impediment is that you don't know if you want to."
"Basically, what the doctor is suggesting is that you shouldn't be wasting your time with make-believe stories about boys being pursued through abandoned hotels by men wielding mallets -speaking of metaphor. What you really need to be doing is 'coming to terms,' and you need to be doing it now. You have to start figuring out how the obsolete past is interfering with the inescapable present, ten, fifteen, twenty years later, particularly how it's interfering with your attempt at happiness. But the main impediment, as far as the doctor's concerned, is that you don't know how to figure any of this out, and the other impediment is that you don't know if you want to."
March 9, 2025
After reading and enjoying, Said Sayrafiezadeh’s short story, “Minimum Payment Due,” in the New Yorker, I decided to read more of his work. I settled on the story collection American Estrangement. This collection includes seven brilliant short stories. While they are all quite distinct (which I think is quite difficult to accomplish in short stories), each narrator struggles with his identity and place in society. They all share a tension that makes it almost stressful to read. Yet, the story Fairground felt reminiscent, in some ways, of Shirley Jackson’s infamous short story, The Lottery. The young narrator captures the strong emotions bubbling among the people seated at the outdoor setting of a public hanging. The “spectacle” is described by the seats, the snacks they ate, everything but the actual “event.” Until the event happens, and everything else up to that point feels inconsequential to what this very young boy has just witnessed. It’s striking how impactful Said’s writing is. Highly recommend this extraordinary short story collection for the writing and the effect it imparts on the reader.
February 19, 2024
I really liked this. Dare I say my favorite short story collection. Saïd is an incredible writer so every story was really great, but I think my favorite was fairground. Or last meal at Whole Foods. But it’s actually remarkable how I was able to enjoy stories all with a male narrator. That never happens and I think speaks for itself.
August 17, 2024
I liked this book more at the beginning when I started to feel like it was autobiographical and that somehow all the very disparate stories would have done sort of coming together which of course doesn’t really happen. The stories feel too different from each other to be a collection.
March 3, 2023
Strong collection of short stories with themes of parent and child and emigration. Many of the stories don't have a clear ending but are still very satisfying.
September 28, 2021
The blurbs and reviews compare Sayrafiezadeh's stories to Denis Johnson and George Saunders. Except for the final story (and possibly the first), I'd say he's closer to Saunders. I sometimes think whenever a writer starts a story with a reference to doing meth or pills or heroin critics automatically place them in the same place as Johnson. That only shows that they've read nothing by Johnson other than Jesus' Son, and really have no other means of talking about a writer other than through comparison. Sayrafiezadeh is doing his own thing, and it is quite good. His prose can be covertly simple, and therefore quite startling, even disturbing. As with any collection, there are some standouts, but I didn't find any duds. Maybe I just got more used to what he was doing, but I felt the stories got stronger as I read, with maybe Fairground being the best.I would recommend this and will seek out his other collection Brief Encounters with the Enemy.
June 12, 2024
Said Sayrafiezadeh's short story collection, American Estrangement, explores the experiences of alienation and identity in contemporary America. The storytelling is poignant and emotional, with just the right amount of sharp social commentary.
The stories in "American Estrangement" cover a wide range of landscapes and social settings. From the challenges faced by an unemployed man grappling with his self-worth, as well as the trials of immigrants striving for acceptance in a society that seems indifferent. At its core, each story revolves around the theme of searching for a sense of belonging.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review.
The stories in "American Estrangement" cover a wide range of landscapes and social settings. From the challenges faced by an unemployed man grappling with his self-worth, as well as the trials of immigrants striving for acceptance in a society that seems indifferent. At its core, each story revolves around the theme of searching for a sense of belonging.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review.
August 24, 2021
Just finished this book in one sitting. I'd read both "Audition" and "A, S, D, F" earlier when they were published in the New Yorker, and was blown away by Sayrafiezadeh's writing then. Sometimes, with short story collections, the best stories are the ones that make it to wide publication and the rest of the stories fall flat in comparison. Luckily, that was certainly not the case here, as every story was phenomenal.
Syarafiezadeh is imagining an America that is just slightly different from the modern day: there are checkpoints between states and public hangings, but it's also America with the same tumultuous undercurrents that characterize today (the ennui of youth meeting middle age). It's also just beautifully written, poignant in its sadness without being overwhelming. Every character he creates feels entirely whole, like a real person was crafted from the short space on the page that Sayrafiezadeh works. Can't recommend this one enough!
(He also loves the phrase "apropos of nothing," which I saw in here at least four times. Honestly, it tied the stories together)
Syarafiezadeh is imagining an America that is just slightly different from the modern day: there are checkpoints between states and public hangings, but it's also America with the same tumultuous undercurrents that characterize today (the ennui of youth meeting middle age). It's also just beautifully written, poignant in its sadness without being overwhelming. Every character he creates feels entirely whole, like a real person was crafted from the short space on the page that Sayrafiezadeh works. Can't recommend this one enough!
(He also loves the phrase "apropos of nothing," which I saw in here at least four times. Honestly, it tied the stories together)
February 8, 2022
American Estrangement is Sayrafiezadeh's second book of short stories and one of the more original collections that I've read in quite a while. There are poignant portrayals of parent and child relationships, humorous predicaments and also some speculative fiction that left me feeling a bit unsettled, but in a good way. If you're a fan of short stories, give this collection a try.
August 28, 2023
I enjoyed this author’s recent short story in the New Yorker. And the one other story in here published in that magazine in 2021, “ASDF,” was also quite good. The others in this collection did not work for me. Lacking meaningful tension or rich development, the work often felt superficial and under-written.
September 29, 2021
I’m a fan of the author. These stories are good, some quite strong, others more middling.
In “ Audition “ we meet a young man, who aspires to be an actor. He is, however, spending his days working as a general laborer for his Fathers development company. And occasionally doing crack cocaine with a coworker
A very strong story is “ Scenic Route.” The author does a great job of letting you know something is different but not going into exact detail. It would be quite likely that the background has to do with the changing American political climate, e.g Trump, but it is not specifically spelled out. In the story a couple, childless, approaching a flailing point in their relationship, decide to take a long talked about trip. They gather all of the necessary travel documents and then fly to Maine. As a reader you immediately wonder why did they need all of these documents to travel to Maine. Once they get to Maine we see that they plan to take a car trip across the country from end to end. They rent a Cadillac Escalade well above their budget in a sense of trying to make the trip special. When they approach the New Hampshire border they have a confrontation with border police. It seems each state now guards there border. As they move across the country this becomes rudimentary until an incident in Kansas when it suddenly isn’t.
In “ Last Meal at Whole Foods “ our narrator is spending the day with his dying Mother. She still looks young, still beautiful, but they have just learned she has months to live and all the broccoli cake in the world will not fix it.
I actually had just read “ A,S,D,F, “ quite recently. It follows a young woman as she works at an art gallery and begins a relationship with the owners daughter.
In “ Fairground “ we again are in a different “ America” where a young boy is going to a hanging with his stepfather. The man recounts going to a hanging with his Father and his Father with his and so on. The boy recounts that the “ zones “ in his city are being relettered and people are being moved in overloaded school buses but this is treated as not something to speak of.
“ Metaphor of the Falling Cat” a man is recovering from an accident at his work. Driving his dairy truck he had been broadsided. While in rehabilitation he and a patient concoct a scheme to make money. He becomes frustrated by the gentleman not getting back to him and then finds that instead of their original plan the man wants him to sell Amway. The man also talks about an obsession that comes upon him by happenstance and that he struggles to deal with.
“ A Beginners Guide to Estrangement “ is one of the better stories. A man recounts his relationship with his father who he has rarely seen since he was a little boy. He tells of a visit to his Father in Buffalo fifteen years ago where they struggled to communicate. Now in his mid thirties his Father has asked him to come see him in Tehran. He does, the visit struggles at first but is opening up as the story ends. We are hopeful for him.
In “ Audition “ we meet a young man, who aspires to be an actor. He is, however, spending his days working as a general laborer for his Fathers development company. And occasionally doing crack cocaine with a coworker
A very strong story is “ Scenic Route.” The author does a great job of letting you know something is different but not going into exact detail. It would be quite likely that the background has to do with the changing American political climate, e.g Trump, but it is not specifically spelled out. In the story a couple, childless, approaching a flailing point in their relationship, decide to take a long talked about trip. They gather all of the necessary travel documents and then fly to Maine. As a reader you immediately wonder why did they need all of these documents to travel to Maine. Once they get to Maine we see that they plan to take a car trip across the country from end to end. They rent a Cadillac Escalade well above their budget in a sense of trying to make the trip special. When they approach the New Hampshire border they have a confrontation with border police. It seems each state now guards there border. As they move across the country this becomes rudimentary until an incident in Kansas when it suddenly isn’t.
In “ Last Meal at Whole Foods “ our narrator is spending the day with his dying Mother. She still looks young, still beautiful, but they have just learned she has months to live and all the broccoli cake in the world will not fix it.
I actually had just read “ A,S,D,F, “ quite recently. It follows a young woman as she works at an art gallery and begins a relationship with the owners daughter.
In “ Fairground “ we again are in a different “ America” where a young boy is going to a hanging with his stepfather. The man recounts going to a hanging with his Father and his Father with his and so on. The boy recounts that the “ zones “ in his city are being relettered and people are being moved in overloaded school buses but this is treated as not something to speak of.
“ Metaphor of the Falling Cat” a man is recovering from an accident at his work. Driving his dairy truck he had been broadsided. While in rehabilitation he and a patient concoct a scheme to make money. He becomes frustrated by the gentleman not getting back to him and then finds that instead of their original plan the man wants him to sell Amway. The man also talks about an obsession that comes upon him by happenstance and that he struggles to deal with.
“ A Beginners Guide to Estrangement “ is one of the better stories. A man recounts his relationship with his father who he has rarely seen since he was a little boy. He tells of a visit to his Father in Buffalo fifteen years ago where they struggled to communicate. Now in his mid thirties his Father has asked him to come see him in Tehran. He does, the visit struggles at first but is opening up as the story ends. We are hopeful for him.
September 1, 2022
Overall I would give this collection of short stories 3 out of 5 stars. Here are my individual ratings on each story.
Audition - 3*
Scenic Route - 2.5*
Last Meal at Whole Foods - 3.5*
A, S, D, F - 3.5*
Fairground - 4*
Metaphor of the Falling Cat - 2.5*
A Beginner’s Guide to Estrangement - 5*
The final story is fantastic. The disconnection and hunger for connection between biological father and son are palpable. The estrangement exists between the protagonist being Americanized and his lack of familiarity with his Iranian heritage. His internal conflict is felt as well as external with how he was raised versus what his cultural upbringing may have been like if raised by his biological father in either America or Iran. How would his life look, feel, or be different? What might be the same no matter what borders he lives within? Sayrafiezadeh does an excellent job of character portrayal and a lifetime of plot within these few pages. He also manages to inject transcultural assumptions, stereotypes and perspectives from outside looking in, inside looking out, inside looking inside and outside looking outside. This short story covers all angles with skilled, high quality writing in a first-person narrative.
The plus is that Sayrafiezadeh manages to masterfully execute this to some effect in every story. Some work out better than others and some of the characters more relatable than others. He does not shy away from anything even going as far to include uncomfortable moments of pedophilia which unfortunately detracted from what could have been more impressive narratives without.
With Scenic Route I came to realize that my personal bias about his perception of a place was getting in the way of me appreciating his efforts. I am from Kansas and if you are from my home state you are likely to see more weaknesses with his story and the setting. But after talking it through with my spouse and subsequently pushing past my personal view, I could see the overall impact of the story and it’s characters better and re-evaluated it on different grounds, raising my initial score.
What I would tell you overall is that these stories are apathetic and reflect the mundane of everyday American life. And with this sort of book, Sayrafiezadeh may have pulled a rabbit out of the hat because it is different but not boring despite the apathy which occasionally is even speckled with some dry humor.
Timewise these stories are pretty obscure, and even blur past present, and possibly near dystopian futures. That was another interesting piece even though there is staunch realism throughout. Fairground, for instance, has some disconcerting moments. It is also an incredible essay on society as well as blended families/relationships.
This book will not appeal to everyone but I thought it was super interesting overall.
Audition - 3*
Scenic Route - 2.5*
Last Meal at Whole Foods - 3.5*
A, S, D, F - 3.5*
Fairground - 4*
Metaphor of the Falling Cat - 2.5*
A Beginner’s Guide to Estrangement - 5*
The final story is fantastic. The disconnection and hunger for connection between biological father and son are palpable. The estrangement exists between the protagonist being Americanized and his lack of familiarity with his Iranian heritage. His internal conflict is felt as well as external with how he was raised versus what his cultural upbringing may have been like if raised by his biological father in either America or Iran. How would his life look, feel, or be different? What might be the same no matter what borders he lives within? Sayrafiezadeh does an excellent job of character portrayal and a lifetime of plot within these few pages. He also manages to inject transcultural assumptions, stereotypes and perspectives from outside looking in, inside looking out, inside looking inside and outside looking outside. This short story covers all angles with skilled, high quality writing in a first-person narrative.
The plus is that Sayrafiezadeh manages to masterfully execute this to some effect in every story. Some work out better than others and some of the characters more relatable than others. He does not shy away from anything even going as far to include uncomfortable moments of pedophilia which unfortunately detracted from what could have been more impressive narratives without.
With Scenic Route I came to realize that my personal bias about his perception of a place was getting in the way of me appreciating his efforts. I am from Kansas and if you are from my home state you are likely to see more weaknesses with his story and the setting. But after talking it through with my spouse and subsequently pushing past my personal view, I could see the overall impact of the story and it’s characters better and re-evaluated it on different grounds, raising my initial score.
What I would tell you overall is that these stories are apathetic and reflect the mundane of everyday American life. And with this sort of book, Sayrafiezadeh may have pulled a rabbit out of the hat because it is different but not boring despite the apathy which occasionally is even speckled with some dry humor.
Timewise these stories are pretty obscure, and even blur past present, and possibly near dystopian futures. That was another interesting piece even though there is staunch realism throughout. Fairground, for instance, has some disconcerting moments. It is also an incredible essay on society as well as blended families/relationships.
This book will not appeal to everyone but I thought it was super interesting overall.
May 13, 2023
I discovered this book on a rainy day. Alone and not doing too well I indexed the spine halfheartedly and fanned the flimsy pages to land on the final paragraph of 48:
“I’m doing sixty-five in a sixty-five zone, fast is the new slow, the Cadillac Escalade hurtling earthward like a projectile. Kansas, Kansas, Kansas, say the license plates. Lizzy is arguing out loud beside me, saying something about turnpikes and big boxes and hollow calories.”
It is the kind of writing that makes me forget I am sitting on the subway, suddenly un-inclined to look out the window at a view I am told is spectacular, miraculous. Entirely indifferent to the rose unspooling in the clouds I want my platform never to arrive, and when my platform arrives I want never to depart from it, spine sloped down towards the paragraph I cannot read fast enough standing up and still - the ending, who could want to reach it.
I tell my people to come over and then I hate the sound of the doorbell. Unwelcome interruption. Halfdrunk past midnight I am thankful it is quiet, I am thankful it is dark; I like knowing everyone else is asleep and I am taking the scenic route, enjoying a last meal at Whole Foods, reminded of that time he was pushing eighty in a forty and I was thoroughly impressed though I should’ve been scared.
And the voice here is just a mimic of that rhythmic precision allowing every descriptor to ring with clarity. It is staccato and syncopated and musical, the low notes wrapped somewhere within. Devastation reveals itself in deadpan sincerity; what is the opposite of unflinching, not yet a sear lost somewhere in a wince? I don’t know if I am floored or simply wanting to read quickly. I am in a car in the middle of somewhere I might never see. What is that word lodged on the back cover, lack, “apathy?” How could you choose a word like that, how could you choose a word at all for a feeling that must evoke multiple and none of them right?
What is “happening?” He is being pulled from the car by the back of his t-shirt collar. Audition. Motel. Yoga and crack cocaine. Young men who speak like they’re resigned to the grave, older men with children’s exclamation marks, women in passenger seats looking out a window and the muttered aside too brief too wistful an exhale for what really is and needs to be a deluge. All this hope and all this forlorn, stuckness, thirty in a forty just to play at slowness, the slowness unsatisfying, like sixty-five in a sixty-five, like eighty in a forty - what could you possibly hope to accomplish by flying? Gentle sameness electrifies that windshield. Maybe it is lifesaving, maybe it is lifetaking. The road it sprawls on and on and on. No more guts to spill.
(He got nine points on his license for that eighty. Was supposed to. I’ve never seen someone talk his way out of the law with such good humor.)
“I’m doing sixty-five in a sixty-five zone, fast is the new slow, the Cadillac Escalade hurtling earthward like a projectile. Kansas, Kansas, Kansas, say the license plates. Lizzy is arguing out loud beside me, saying something about turnpikes and big boxes and hollow calories.”
It is the kind of writing that makes me forget I am sitting on the subway, suddenly un-inclined to look out the window at a view I am told is spectacular, miraculous. Entirely indifferent to the rose unspooling in the clouds I want my platform never to arrive, and when my platform arrives I want never to depart from it, spine sloped down towards the paragraph I cannot read fast enough standing up and still - the ending, who could want to reach it.
I tell my people to come over and then I hate the sound of the doorbell. Unwelcome interruption. Halfdrunk past midnight I am thankful it is quiet, I am thankful it is dark; I like knowing everyone else is asleep and I am taking the scenic route, enjoying a last meal at Whole Foods, reminded of that time he was pushing eighty in a forty and I was thoroughly impressed though I should’ve been scared.
And the voice here is just a mimic of that rhythmic precision allowing every descriptor to ring with clarity. It is staccato and syncopated and musical, the low notes wrapped somewhere within. Devastation reveals itself in deadpan sincerity; what is the opposite of unflinching, not yet a sear lost somewhere in a wince? I don’t know if I am floored or simply wanting to read quickly. I am in a car in the middle of somewhere I might never see. What is that word lodged on the back cover, lack, “apathy?” How could you choose a word like that, how could you choose a word at all for a feeling that must evoke multiple and none of them right?
What is “happening?” He is being pulled from the car by the back of his t-shirt collar. Audition. Motel. Yoga and crack cocaine. Young men who speak like they’re resigned to the grave, older men with children’s exclamation marks, women in passenger seats looking out a window and the muttered aside too brief too wistful an exhale for what really is and needs to be a deluge. All this hope and all this forlorn, stuckness, thirty in a forty just to play at slowness, the slowness unsatisfying, like sixty-five in a sixty-five, like eighty in a forty - what could you possibly hope to accomplish by flying? Gentle sameness electrifies that windshield. Maybe it is lifesaving, maybe it is lifetaking. The road it sprawls on and on and on. No more guts to spill.
(He got nine points on his license for that eighty. Was supposed to. I’ve never seen someone talk his way out of the law with such good humor.)
November 26, 2023
Audition:
A 19 year old boy details the two times he’s smoked crack cocaine. He has lived a relatively privileged life, taking acting lessons and aspires to be an actor, but for now he works for his dad in construction. He plays the role of not being the owner’s son, and he feels estranged from the other workers, who come in and out and live much different lives from him. He thinks his problems are long term and complex, while their problems are short term and simple. He drives a coworker home, Duncan, and he asks the narrator to “party,” which means smoking. The experience leaves him relatively unchanged, although him and Duncan become friends; the narrator tells him about his dreams of going to LA. Duncan tells him that he’s already lived in LA during his high school years, and he describes it only as “magical.” The narrator gets a call from his old acting teacher who has proposed a part for him in a play, and he feels very special, but when he gets to the audition site he realizes there are many copies of him who all had the same acting teacher. The audition consists of him having to respond to the prompt “show me the color red,” and he is confused for a second, feeling the slowness of his age, but ends up lying on his back and pretending to smoke a cigarette. He gets the role, and Duncan invites him to celebrate a second time. He says that this is the last time, although he feels contrary to that already, and feels young.
Scenic Route:
The narrator and his wife, Lizzy, are on a scenic road trip across America in hopes of salvaging their marriage. They have marital, economic, and personal issues. They get stopped by police, then at the end random people who assault him.
A Beginner’s Guide to Estrangement:
Danesh meets with his biological father in Iran who he hasn’t seen in years. They feel the awkwardness as Danesh, who goes by Danny McDade, feels estranged from his father and his culture.
I definitely liked the first and last story best, mostly because I felt like they said something as opposed to the odd drab of the rest of the stories. I think there were a lot of good points; Audition in particular nailed the feeling of guilt in privilege and the societal pressures to conform (covert prestige happening in the speech patterns), and Estrangement is very relatable to diaspora of any culture. I didn't like how many of these narrators were never named, which isn't a requirement by any means, but I feel like a name would have been nice. Often times I forget names in books, so it made me even more confused on whether I forgot the name or if it was never specified in the first place. Overall, a pretty average collection of short stories: some memorable with the rest forgettable.
A 19 year old boy details the two times he’s smoked crack cocaine. He has lived a relatively privileged life, taking acting lessons and aspires to be an actor, but for now he works for his dad in construction. He plays the role of not being the owner’s son, and he feels estranged from the other workers, who come in and out and live much different lives from him. He thinks his problems are long term and complex, while their problems are short term and simple. He drives a coworker home, Duncan, and he asks the narrator to “party,” which means smoking. The experience leaves him relatively unchanged, although him and Duncan become friends; the narrator tells him about his dreams of going to LA. Duncan tells him that he’s already lived in LA during his high school years, and he describes it only as “magical.” The narrator gets a call from his old acting teacher who has proposed a part for him in a play, and he feels very special, but when he gets to the audition site he realizes there are many copies of him who all had the same acting teacher. The audition consists of him having to respond to the prompt “show me the color red,” and he is confused for a second, feeling the slowness of his age, but ends up lying on his back and pretending to smoke a cigarette. He gets the role, and Duncan invites him to celebrate a second time. He says that this is the last time, although he feels contrary to that already, and feels young.
Scenic Route:
The narrator and his wife, Lizzy, are on a scenic road trip across America in hopes of salvaging their marriage. They have marital, economic, and personal issues. They get stopped by police, then at the end random people who assault him.
A Beginner’s Guide to Estrangement:
Danesh meets with his biological father in Iran who he hasn’t seen in years. They feel the awkwardness as Danesh, who goes by Danny McDade, feels estranged from his father and his culture.
I definitely liked the first and last story best, mostly because I felt like they said something as opposed to the odd drab of the rest of the stories. I think there were a lot of good points; Audition in particular nailed the feeling of guilt in privilege and the societal pressures to conform (covert prestige happening in the speech patterns), and Estrangement is very relatable to diaspora of any culture. I didn't like how many of these narrators were never named, which isn't a requirement by any means, but I feel like a name would have been nice. Often times I forget names in books, so it made me even more confused on whether I forgot the name or if it was never specified in the first place. Overall, a pretty average collection of short stories: some memorable with the rest forgettable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 19, 2021
Absolutely extraordinary. Sayrafiezadah has this way of distilling a single moment in each of his stories that slows down the time and conceptually sums everything up perfectly— the one that immediately comes to mind is the scrabble scene in Last Meal at Whole Foods, a story so close to my own intense fears that I had trouble making my way through it because it was almost always too much for me, but gorgeously written and impactful. The first story in the collection “Audition” is in my top 5 short stories of all time and I can never get over the last two pages. “A, S, D, F” was all it was cracked up to be, an added bonus that it takes place in the best 2 environments in the world: an art gallery and a bookshop. The title of this collection is perfect bc each of the stories had to do with some sort of estrangement, from dreams, spouses, parents, cultures, our own past. The stories have such raw truth that I would be surprised if much of this isn’t in some way autobiographical. Sayrafiezadeh leaves it all on the page for us. The stories hit hard and best of all they have immense reread value. I’m not sure if I want to find a new book or just read this one 5 more times to really understand how he crafts these amazing stories.
December 28, 2024
3.75/5 a very interesting collection of stories, so well-written and compelling! a few of them ended too abruptly for my liking and the open-endedness and general ambiguity only worked for me sometimes but overall a great read. my favorites were "last meal at whole foods," "a, s, d, f," and "a beginner's guide to estrangement." I would love to read more of saïd's works!
"I could see him searching through the database in his head, searching, searching, and coming up empty because, after all, there were only a handful of memories to choose from, and now the small talk was replaced by silence, prolonged and telling, my dad and I avoiding eye contact, while the table of my American peers stuffed their faces with plates of ghormeh sabzi. I thought perhaps I should try to offer my own reminiscences from the past, but all I had were bits and pieces of non-narrative. Do you remember the time you were sitting on the blue couch? Do you remember the time you put the hard-boiled egg on my plate?"
"I could see him searching through the database in his head, searching, searching, and coming up empty because, after all, there were only a handful of memories to choose from, and now the small talk was replaced by silence, prolonged and telling, my dad and I avoiding eye contact, while the table of my American peers stuffed their faces with plates of ghormeh sabzi. I thought perhaps I should try to offer my own reminiscences from the past, but all I had were bits and pieces of non-narrative. Do you remember the time you were sitting on the blue couch? Do you remember the time you put the hard-boiled egg on my plate?"
September 2, 2023
America certainly isn't a welcome wagon these days. The sense of alienation is catnip for contemporary authors, and probably is a means of working through personal stuff. But for readers, narratives of the tragically flawed and chronically depressed can raise 'tell me something I don't already know' yearnings. Said Sayrafiezadeh's short stories traffic through depressive Americana terrain, yet his observations and characterizations have nuance. These are people who know they're going down paths of disappointment, navigating unhealthy urges, dealing with distant and dying parents. He knows when to wisely pull punches, those moments when direct hits would just punish the weak. These are first person perspectives, people I recognized in myself and empathized with. In that sense, the book is deeply connective. These are people we know intimately, even if it's not always comfortable.
December 21, 2021
I stumbled upon this book by accident when I was awaiting the arrival of another audio book and found “Estrangement” available to check out. What a find! Sayrafiezadeh is an excellent writer who intricately describes the challenges of being a man in diverse situations that shed light on our fraught, fragile culture. Another plus is that each individual story is read by a different reader so that the characters in each are unique and compelling in their own right. I highly recommend this book. It was a joy to read.
August 31, 2023
For a book filled with stories of estrangement, I found a lot strangely comforting familiarity to the characters. The “emotionally bruised” protagonists highlighted that even the mundane can be mildly profound. These are the types of characters I often see played out in all my favorite indie rom-coms. The average, the unenthused, the depressed male. But no manic pixie dream girl to teach them how to be happy. American Estrangement did a great job of showing that despite having an uncomfortable space between the ones we love, at least we all have that space in common.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews