Everything Sad Is Untrue

Daniel’s father calls once a month on a Sunday, and he tries to ensure that Daniel remembers his history. The legend goes that his father’s family got their land as a gift from the king of India after saving the princess’s life. In Oklahoma, Daniel does not feel like a king. He misses his father and thinks of how he would bring home candy, even though he is a dentist. The memory of the candy makes Daniel think of three myths.

The first is the myth of Baker and Tamar. Baker Abbas was an errand boy in New Jolfa, and he fell in love with Tamar. They could not marry since she was a governor’s daughter. He set himself out to become a master baker, throwing all his unrequited love into his work, and his first major order was from the governor for the wedding of his daughter. When she tasted one of the desserts, she felt his love, but it was too late. The name of the bakery still in New Jolfa is named for “[t]he sound of a punch to the rib-Akh!—Oh!—Oh! Tamar! The sound of the old master baker weeping in the back kitchen” (36). It is Akh Tamar.

Daniel sometimes goes to the library and reads Calvin & Hobbes as well as poetry and other stories. There, he teaches himself English.

Daniel doesn’t talk to his sister very often. She is a good student, and she hates Ray, their stepdad. He is a Christian, like their mother. He tries to teach Daniel different fight moves using old movies like Enter the Dragon and the Best of the Best. Daniel thinks that one day he will have to fight Ray since Ray hits his mom.

Forgetting is hard for Daniel and he feels like he is forgetting things. He wonders if he ever hugged his grandfather and knows that he forgot the Italian he picked up in the refugee camp. He has also forgotten his mother’s father, but “he’s less important because I think he’s a killer who married a child bride” (49).

His maternal great-grandmother is named Aziz who lived in a big house surrounded by saffron fields. Her father was a khan, a kind, gentleman farmer, who she worshipped. One day, the khan had to take a trip, and he did not return, as it was during World War II and the borders out of Azerbaijan were closed.

Daniel also discusses 1,001 Nights as part of his class project. He tells the story of Shahryar, a Persian king who finds his wife cheating on him and has everyone killed. Each night after that, he marries a young woman and kills her in the morning until he marries Scheherazade. She tells him a story each night, stopping just before the ending every morning so that he is compelled to let her live to hear the end. She does this for 1,001 nights.

Because of the war and her father’s disappearance, Aziz and her mother fell into poverty. One morning, 10-year-old Aziz found her mother dead, and her uncles—two villains, one that “want[ed] more for himself” and “[t]he other is the kind who want[ed] less for others” (63) took over and kept Aziz around to care for the house.

Daniel switches to thinking about marriage, and the many reasons people get married, including for money and protection. He thinks that his mom wanted someone who spoke Farsi like they did. They lived in an apartment building when they came to the United States, and it’s so different from the house they lived in before.

When Aziz turned 14, she stopped hoping her father would come home. One day, her uncles told her that she was married and that she was going to a man in Karaj. She never returned to her home.

Daniel switches stories again, explaining that in his class, they made goody bags for American soldiers “and it is very important that I help as much as I can to prove whose side I’m on” (70). He explains that other people think that his family supports Saddam Hussein, even though he bombed Iran and that kids don’t care about the difference between Iraq and Iran.

He also has a crush on Kelly J., who likes Tyler L., even though she is mean to him. He wants her to recognize that he is a person. He thinks that all Persian love stories are tragedies, giving the myth of Khosrou and Shirin, the legend of Aziz and her husband, and the history of him breaking his thumb at his mom’s church as examples.

In the first story, Khosrou II, the grandson of the great shah Khosrou, falls in love with Shirin, but she will only marry him if he takes his kingdom back from his evil uncles. He agrees to marry another woman named Maryam to get her father’s army. Meanwhile, a man named Farhad falls in love with Shirin. Khosrou tricks Farhad into killing himself. Shirin then poisons Maryam so that Khosrou II can be with her. Khosrou II’s son then kills his father so that he can be with Shirin, who ends up drinking poison at Khosrou’s grave.

Aziz did love Hassan, her husband in Karaj, and she brought him tea one day. While she was there, he got into a fight with a doctor, who asked Hassan to tow his car and fix it when Hassan explained that he only sold parts for cars. Soon, Hassan and Aziz have a daughter named Ehteram (but who Daniel refers to as “Ellie”). Then, Hassan collapses, and Aziz finds him. Even though she knows that Hassan will be furious with her, she goes to find the doctor, who gives Hassan a bottle of medicine. He continues to get worse and dies. She realizes the medicine killed him. When she returns home one day, the bottle is gone, so she can do nothing about the murder.

Daniel broke his thumb because another boy stole his Miami Dolphins hat, a cap that his mother got him because his new friend was a Dolphins fan. At a church potluck, a group of boys steal the hat, and Daniel ends up ruining one’s shirt. Another boy runs off with his hat again and Daniel holds onto it so hard that his thumb breaks as it is pulled away from him. He ends up throwing the hat away.