From the critically acclaimed author of Sons and Other
Flammable Objects comes a bold fabulist novel about a feral boy
coming of age in New York, based on a legend from the medieval
Persian epic The Shahnameh, the Book of Kings.
In a rural Iranian village, Zal?s demented mother,
horrified by the pallor of his skin and hair, becomes convinced
she has given birth to a ?White Demon.? She hides him in a
birdcage and there he lives for the next decade. Unfamiliar with
human society, Zal eats birdseed and insects, squats atop the
newspaper he sleeps upon, and communicates only in the squawks
and shrieks of the other pet birds around him.
Freed from his cage and adopted by a behavioral analyst, Zal
awakens in New York to the possibility of a future. An emotionally
stunted and physically unfit adolescent, he strives to become human
as he stumbles toward adulthood, but his persistent dreams in ?bird?
and his secret penchant for candied insects make real conformity
impossible. As New York survives one potential disaster, Y2K, and
begins hurtling toward another, 9/11, Zal finds himself in a cast of
fellow outsiders. A friendship with a famous illusionist who
claims?to the Bird Boy's delight?that he can fly and a romantic
relationship with a disturbed artist who believes she is clairvoyant
send Zal?s life spiraling into chaos. Like the rest of New York, he
is on a collision course with devastation.
In tones
haunting yet humorous and unflinching yet reverential, The Last
Illusion explores the powers of storytelling while investigating
contemporary and classical magical thinking. Its potent
lyricism, stylistic inventiveness, and examination of otherness
can appeal to readers of Salman Rushdie and Helen Oyeyemi. A
celebrated essayist and chronicler of the 9/11-era, Khakpour
reimagines New York?s most harrowing catastrophe with a dazzling
homage to her beloved city.
About the Author
Porochista Khakpour?s debut novel, Sons and Other Flammable
Objects, was named a New York Times Editor?s Choice, one of the
Chicago Tribune?s Fall?s Best, and the 2007 California Book
Award winner in the first fiction category. Her honors
include fellowships from the National Endowment for the
Arts, the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars,
Northwestern University, the Sewanee Writers? Conference,
Ucross, and Yaddo. Her nonfiction has appeared in or is
forthcoming in Harper?s, the New York Times, the Los Angeles
Times, Spin, Slate, and Salon, among many others. Khakpour
currently teaches at Columbia University?s MFA program, Fordham
University, and Wesleyan University. She lives in New York
City.
Praise for The
Last Illusion
?A boy
raised among birds is rescued and brought to pre-September 11
New York in Porochista Khakpour?s savagely funny, Persian
folktale-inspired The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury), in which
coming-of-age and first love are complicated by dreams of flight and
chocolate_covered crickets.? ?Vogue
"An audaciously ambitious novel . . . . Plot summary fails
to convey the spirit of this creative flight of fancy; farce
meets disaster in a novel that illuminates what it means to be
human, normal and in love." ?Kirkus Reviews (starred
review)
?Utterly original and
compelling, Porochista Khakpour's The Last Illusion weaves
Iranian myth with very contemporary American neurosis to create
a bittersweet poetry all its own. This ambitious, exciting
literary adventure is at once grotesque, amusing, deeply sad?and
wonderful, too.? ?Claire Messud
?Lauded American Iranian critic and novelist Khakpour writes
another gripping tale that mixes myth and history . . . . Khakpour?s
writing walks a line between mythical and realistic, somehow melding
the two seamlessly and keeping reality in sharp focus; the reader
aches for Zal, who fumbles through life as neither completely bird
nor completely human.? ?Booklist
