"The revolution is not only inevitable, it is imminent. It is not only imminent, it is quite imminent. And when the time comes, my father will lead it."

With a profound gift for capturing the absurd in life, and a deadpan wisdom that comes from surviving a surreal childhood in the Socialist Workers Party, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh has crafted an unsentimental, funny, heartbreaking memoir.

Saïd's Iranian-born father and American Jewish mother had one thing in common: their unshakable conviction that the workers' revolution was coming. Separated since their son was nine months old, they each pursued a dream of the perfect socialist society. Pinballing with his mother between makeshift Pittsburgh apartments, falling asleep at party meetings, longing for the luxuries he's taught to despise, Said waits for the revolution that never, ever arrives. "Soon," his mother assures him, while his long-absent father quixotically runs as a socialist candidate for president in an Iran about to fall under the ayatollahs. Then comes the hostage crisis. The uproar that follows is the first time Saïd hears the word "Iran" in school. There he is suddenly forced to confront the combustible stew of his identity: as an American, an Iranian, a Jew, a socialist... and a middle-school kid who loves football and video games.

Poised perfectly between tragedy and farce, here is a story by a brilliant young writer struggling to break away from the powerful mythologies of his upbringing and create a life--and a voice--of his own. Saïd Sayrafiezadeh's memoir is unforgettable.

From the Hardcover edition.

My father believes that the United States is destined one day to be engulfed in a socialist revolution. All revolutions are bloody, he says, but this one will be the bloodiest of them all. The working class--which includes me--will at some point in the not-so-distant future decide to put down the tools of our trade, pour into the streets, beat the police into submission, take over the means of production, and usher in a new epoch--the final epoch--of peace and equality. This revolution is not only inevitable, it is imminent. It is not only imminent, it is quite imminent. And when the time comes, my father will lead it.

Because of such urgency I do not see my father very often. This despite the fact we both live in New York City. Weeks pass. Months pass. Then a year. At times I will begin to wonder if I will ever hear from him again, but just as I do, a postcard will arrive from Istanbul, or Tehran, or Athens, or Minneapolis, where he has gone to attend this or that conference or to deliver this or that speech. "The weather is beautiful here," he will write in enormous swirling optimistic cursive that fi lls the white space, leaving room to say nothing more. We've had our moments, though, over the years. My eighteenth birthday--the fi rst time we had been together for any of my birthdays--my father astounded me by giving me a Walkman, by far the most expensive present I'd ever received. Then for my nineteenth birthday I stayed an entire week with him and his wife--his second wife--taking photographs, watching movies on the VCR, and playing Scrabble late into the night, where, even though my father is Iranian and English is his third language, he beat me nearly every time. We also took a long walk one Sunday afternoon, just him and me, to the aquarium at Coney Island, sitting side by side in the winter air while we watched as a walrus swam back and forth in its cement pond. Later at the café I was so nervous about being on my best behavior that I knocked over an entire cup of coffee onto his lap. "Sorry, Pop. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry." And every Sunday morning during my freshman year in college he would call to ask if he could help answer any questions I might be having with Algebra 101. He is a professor of mathematics, after all.

But first and foremost my father is a member--a comrade--of the Socialist Workers Party. He is a leading comrade, in fact, and has been for almost all my life. The responsibilities he chooses to undertake include, but are not limited to, editing books, writing articles, giving speeches, teaching political classes, attending book sales, demonstrations, rallies, meetings, conferences, picket lines . . . By the time I was in my early twenties my father had again begun to disappear behind this massive workload of revolution, and his phone calls grew increasingly infrequent until they ceased altogether, and our joyful reunions became more like occasional punctuation marks in long paragraphs of silence.

One summer night, when I was twenty- seven years old, I took my girlfriend to Film Forum in the West Village to watch a documentary on Che Guevara. When the movie was over, I came out of the theater to see my father standing on the sidewalk behind a table with an array of books published by Pathfi nder Press, the publishing house of the Socialist Workers Party. Che Guevara Speaks. Che Guevara Talks to Young People. The History of the Russian Revolution. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. A handwritten banner was draped over the front of the table with a quote by Castro that read "There will be a victorious revolution in the United States before there will be a victorious counterrevolution in...

 

 

"[Sayrafiezadeh] writes with grace and clarity about growing up juggling deprivation and desire."

 

"Sayrafiezadeh looks back with wonder, even humor, at the many difficulties he faced in his childhood...[He] maintains a generous spirit throughout this eloquent memoir."

 

"A memoir is a bold thing to write so young, but the author pulls it off with pathos and humor, proving some histories are best written early."

 

"[A] wry, lovely memoir."

 

"Once I began When Skateboards Will Be Free, I couldn't put it down but to sleep. So rending a memoir, it reaches the reader's innermost consciousness. Its language has the fierceness and humor of a Charles Dickens story about childhood."

 

"Said Sayrafiezadeh has a wry, deadpan sense of humor, an exceptionally open heart, and the wisdom of a true outsider. When Skateboards Will Be Free shows us exactly how he came into possession of these rare qualities. This is a fantastic, beautifully written memoir."

 

"When Skateboards Will Be Free is a brave, honest and elegant book. It felt like the story was being whispered in my ear. I haven't read a memoir in quite a while that has so skillfully made sense of an American childhood."

 

"Sad, angry, hilarious, heartbreaking, and brave--When Skateboards Will Be Free does everything a fine memoir should, and more. That Said Sayrafiezadeh survived his childhood in one piece would be triumph enough, but this beautiful book expands that personal triumph into art. It belongs on the shelf next to the best modern memoirs."

 

"Sayrafiezadeh's memoir is lucid, heartbreaking, finally uplifting. This is a jail-break of a book. I loved it."

 

"Do not pity Sayrafiezadeh his childhood of deprivation--wonder at his ability to transform poverty into comedy and genuine suffering into joy."

 

"This is a remarkable memoir of a fragmented childhood."

 

Saïd Sayrafiezadeh's writing has appeared in Granta, the Paris Review, and Open City. He lives in New York.

From the Hardcover...