American Playground, a novel by Michael Shokrian
How a 7-year old Iranian kid moved to LA with only one word of English and learned everything he needed to know to become an American on the battlefield of a suburban playground.
Once the tetherball king of his school in Tehran, Mishel Manoucherian, is immediately singled out for being brown and quite possibly Mexican. He becomes the newest member of the downtrodden boys known as the Nons. Mishel plots to get in with the Pros – long haired, carefree kids who rule the playground, radiating the casual essence of 70’s California Cool. Mishel knows who he wants to be; but can he first admit who he is?
At home, Mishel watches nervous breakdowns happen daily in his family. Mama clings to superstitions, family recipes, defying bourgeois LA while Baba absents himself seeking the Amrikayee Dream. Will they ever find their place in the American landscape? And at what cost? Mishel turns to an unlikely mentor for advice: Bugs Bunny. What a maroon.
Classic coming-of-age narrative wrapped in an immigrant family’s struggle to fit into American life, played out via the hardnosed hierarchies of the asphalt jungle. Mishel’s tragicomic encounters recall Paddy Clark, Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle– with a Persian twist, alongside Iranian-American classics like Porochista Khakpour’s Sons and Other Flammable Objects and Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni. Imagine those books with a wise-cracking rabbit guiding the way: “Don’t take life too seriously, kid. You’ll never get out alive!” That’s American Playground.
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