Author Abdi Nazemian received a Lambda Literary Award for his debut novel for adults, The Walk-In Closet. His debut novel for teenagers, Like a Love Story, acquired a Stonewall Honor and was acknowledged by Time journal as one of the 100 biggest YA novels of all time. His fifth ebook, Only This Beautiful Moment, appears more likely to proceed Nazemian’s profitable streak.
Moud is a homosexual Iranian American teen dwelling in Los Angeles. He doesn’t bear in mind his mom, who died when he was very younger, and his father, Saeed, is like an detached zombie—tolerant however hardly accepting. When Moud and Saeed journey to Tehran to be with Moud’s grandfather, Babak, generations of trauma, secrets and techniques and love come spilling out. Contrary to what Moud’s know-it-all white boyfriend says, Iran is full of life, artwork, magnificence and sure, even queerness. “I think Americans are so bored that they talk about things that don’t really matter,” Moud’s cousin Ava quips earlier than whisking him away to a celebration.
Of course, dwelling an genuine life is never easy. Intolerance, authorities corruption, financial instability—neither the United States nor Iran are immune. The blurriness of identification, whilst it will definitely comes into focus, is what makes Only This Beautiful Moment such a fascinating learn.
Nazemian’s epic yarn comes collectively in lengthy chapters that luxuriate within the novel’s settings as they hop between Los Angeles and Tehran in 1939, 1978 and 2019. The closing product is nothing brief of a masterpiece, tearing down the homophobic facade that separates queer folks from their very own historical past. “We exist. We always did. We always will,” says one of Babak’s mentors. “And wait until they all die and get to heaven and realize God was on our side the whole time.”
Fans of Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s docu-drama Veneno will respect how Nazemian recollects the enjoyment and ache of ancestral legacy. The novel additionally recollects Tony Kushner’s name to motion in Angels in America: to be a greater ally, to be higher stewards of queer historical past and, put merely, to maintain dwelling.
Only This Beautiful Moment is a queer epic, a defiant piece of artwork that transmutes the rallying cry of “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” into much more stunning poetry that may nearly definitely change the lives of those that learn it.
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