American Estrangement by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh [in Booklist]
The men, mostly young, in memoirist and playwright Saïd Sayrafiezadeh’s provoking second story collection lack fulfillment. “Workplace lassitude” is suffocating a 19-year-old wannabe actor stuck at his father’s construction company in “Audition,” while an art-gallery employee fights nine hours of daily tedium in “A, S, D, F,” and a dairy-truck driver fully recovered from an accident schemes about remaining jobless in “Metaphor of the Falling Cat.”
A threatened parent-child bond shapes “Last Meal at Whole Foods,” which portrays a son anticipating his mother’s too-early death, and “A Beginner’s Guide to Estrangement” features a 35-year-old American who bypasses travel bans to visit his father in Iran. Two tales consider dissatisfaction in a dystopian near future: in “Scenic Route,” a fortyish couple facing relationship and financial collapse takes a road trip despite imminent dangers; in “Fairground,” the protagonist recalls his first (and only) public execution, in a stadium with popcorn, which he witnessed with a short-lived stepfather.
Sayrafiezadeh’s assured writing works in contrast with his discontented, stumbling, watching, and waiting characters who are plagued by the titular estrangement and its undermining consequences.
Review: “Fiction,” Booklist, July 2021
Readers: Adult
Published: 2021
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