Everything Sad is Untrue is an autobiographical novel published in 2020 that is both “fiction and nonfiction,” according to its author, Daniel Nayeri (354). Nayeri, his mother, and his sister sought refuge in the United States when he was eight years old, having fled from Iran. Daniel, the book’s narrator and author, weaves story after story for his reader, playing the role of Scheherazade before the king as if he was in 1,001 Nights and trying to survive. He details the story of how and why his family fled from Iraq while also interworking the story of his ancestors and the story of his life in Oklahoma with a stepfather who abuses his mom and classmates who bully him.

Everything Sad is Untrue won the Michael L. Printz Award, the Judy Lopez Memorial Award for Children’s Literature, and the Middle East Book Award for Literature. This study guide refers to the 2020 edition of Everything Sad is Untrue published by Levine Querido.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with Khosrou Nayeri explaining that “All Persians are liars and lying is a sin” (1). He suggests that Persians are liars, but rather, they are poets who are trying to grapple with remembering and recounting thousands of years of history. He immediately references 1,001 Nights and the story of Scheherazade telling story after story to a king to stay alive.

Khosrou begins with the first memory of his Baba Haji, his grandfather, who remains in Iran while Khosrou lives with his mother Sima and sister Dina in Oklahoma. His mom had to flee Iran because she became a Christian, which was illegal. He also tells readers to call him Daniel, to not worry about trying to pronounce Khosrou.

Daniel’s father Massoud calls once a month, emphasizing that Daniel needs to remember his heritage. In return, Daniel tells us the story of Baker and Tamar, a tragic love story, but he still worries that he will forget his past.

He recounts the stories of his great-grandmother, who was robbed of her inheritance and whose husband was killed. As he tells this story, he switches between others to keep his reader’s attention, much like Scheherazade.

Daniel explains that his stepfather Ray beats his mother, but she divorced and married him again both at the pastor’s suggestion that Ray has repented and because she needs the money. Like Sima, his great-grandmother also remarried. His grandmother Ellie, Aziz’s daughter by her first marriage, lives in England, having been exiled after she and her lover decided to kill her husband. They were unsuccessful, and her husband had her lover killed and forced her to leave Iran, leaving behind all her children except for her daughter Sanaz.

At school, Daniel is bullied, and he often oversleeps to avoid his bully. He goes home by himself while his mother is at work and his sister is in afterschool activities. His mother was once a doctor, but now she is forced to take whatever job she can get since her credentials aren’t recognized in the United States.

Sanaz’s wedding takes place at a church and ultimately results in Sima’s conversion to Christianity. When they come for the wedding, Massoud—Daniel’s father—smuggles opium into England to sell. When they return to Iran, Sima joins a secret church, and the Komiteh, the secret police, find out. They interrogate her, asking for the names of other members, and the family flees. They first go to Dubai, then a refugee camp in Italy, and finally end up in the United States because members of church connected with Ellie’s church in England were willing to sponsor them. During this journey, Daniel also learns that his parents are divorcing, and his father has already remarried. Additionally, in Dubai, Sima realizes that people keep mispronouncing “Khosrou,” and so Daniel becomes Daniel.

At the end of the novel, Massoud comes to visit. It is the first time that Daniel has seen him in six years. He speaks before Daniel’s class, and he charms them, proving that many of the stories that Daniel has told his class about his life before are true. Daniel also thanks his teacher, Mrs. Miller, for knowing when to talk and when to listen.

After Massoud leaves, Ray and Sima get into an argument, and when Ray tells the children to go to a different room, Dina refuses, knowing that Ray is going to beat their mother when they do. He still hurts Sima, and the three of them leave Ray, seemingly for good. Daniel thinks about all his mother has been through and sees that she holds “the hope that some final fantasy will come to pass that will make everything sad untrue” (346). After his sister falls asleep, he asks Sima about the first memory he shared with his readers, the one of his Baba Haji. She corrects him, but she also frees him of some guilt he held about a bull being killed. He feels that one day he and his family will feel whole.