"Crazy Rich West Asians Meet Euphoria": Porochista Khakpour's Vibrant Novel, "Tehrangeles"

Mandana Chaffa

June 13

Imagine a social media savvy Little Women rooted in an Iranian-American enclave in Los Angeles, toss in a potential reality show, add a world-changing global pandemic and it still doesn't fully encompass the twisty tumult and pleasure in Porochista Khakpour's new novel, Tehrangeles.

For the uninitiated, Tehrangeles is the area of Los Angeles that experienced an influx of Iranians after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, but beyond geography, it's a state of mind. Khakpour's entertaining novel centers on the Milani family, led by father Al—a successful snack food entrepreneur—and mother Homa, and their four daughters, who are at the cusp of getting their own Bravo show, with varying degrees of excitement and wariness.

The novel is a pitch-perfect sendup of reality TV, the untruthiness of social media, and the challenge of living an authentic life in such murky waters. Khakpour's sharp wit also examines cultural identity, assimilation, economic inequities, consumerism, and social mediafication of modern life, while never losing the main thread of this lively family.

Will the Milanis end up on a couch with Andy Cohen? Will outside forces and family secrets strengthen their relationships or break the clan apart? Khakpour exuberantly leads readers through a fast-paced narrative, which is ideally timed for the summer reading season.

I had the opportunity to talk to Khakpour—also a talented essayist—about the memorable and outrageous Milani sisters, and our shifting identities amidst overly online lives.

Mandana Chaffa

In the acknowledgements you mention that you first contemplated Tehrangeles more than a dozen years ago, with origins in your reading experience of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. It also thematically traverses ground parallel to your essays and other novels, though from a different angle and context. How did it finally come to fruition now?

Porochista Khakpour

It actually took the early pandemic years to complete it. I needed that perfect setting and the claustrophobia and darkness and insanity of that era made it ideal. It's an early 2020 period piece.

Mandana Chaffa

You have such a light touch describing both the diversity and the contradictions of Iranian culture. Though the satire is hilarious, the deeper conversation about identity—especially a post-calamity identity—generationally and culturally indicates how much you've thought about these issues. How has your thinking and writing about this subject shifted over the years? What does fiction versus nonfiction offer you in this contemplation?

Porochista Khakpour

Iranian-American culture has been a source of fascination for me both from the inside and various outsides. A lot of pendulum swings, to be honest. Right now I find myself quite disappointed at some of the mainstream Iranian response with Gaza—the rise of a sort of conservative (and of course monarchist, as well as often zionist) Islamophobic Iranian identity that gains quite a lot of traction in a white nationalist-obsessed West. Iranians can very easily be villains in their own story. This is inspiring in the worst way. The challenge is how to critique without becoming self-hating, of course. Humor for me was key here though sometimes it seems easier just to cry.

Mandana Chaffa

I also appreciated your exploration of the power of names, those that are given to us and those we choose for ourselves. When I became a citizen of the U.S., it was suggested to me to change my name and make it "easier" for others. Let alone what it is—even now!—to identify as Iranian or Persian. Was this something you experienced, that you also transferred to the novel?

Porochista Khakpour

Yes, but my father was adamantly against this so it never seemed an option. Also, I never knew other "Porochistas" back then so I had no idea what the anglicization would be. I left it alone. I am so happy I did. I think that shaped my character to some extent—the refusal to conform was very deep within me even as a kid.

Mandana Chaffa

You've written about this before in The Brown Album and elsewhere, but I appreciate the many nuances of immigrancy that you blend into this novel. Depending upon when our ancestors arrive, and how (and where) they've settled, our experiences, and how we appear to the world, aren't the same (there's quite a difference between eldest and youngest sister in Tehrangeles). The sisters are certainly American in their Persianness; their primary identity is American, and specifically Angeleno, as compared to let's say, their mom. Has this changed for you throughout your life? Has Los Angeles changed, whenever you return?

Porochista Khakpour

For me it has not changed so much, though my relationship to family members and relatives has somewhat. LA certainly. I recognize it less and less and find myself often so disappointed by it. But what makes it unbearable to me also makes it a perfect subject for art. I don't want to live there but I do want to write about it.

Mandana Chaffa

Catastrophes alter our sense of self within the world or at least the world we've constructed for ourselves; the pandemic of course, but also chronic illness. Each of the family members has had to reconsider who and how they are in the book, and though you interrogate their personalities you're also quite gentle with them. The way you've written them, it's impossible not to feel a certain amount of kinship with everyone in this family, all of whom ultimately always have each other's back. (Is it wrong to say that Mina is my favorite?) In the process of writing this book over a decade, did the characters change for you?

Porochista Khakpour

Mina is my favorite too—she is who I understand most deeply. I came to enjoy writing Haylee but for opposite reasons—she was so awful in so many ways. I got to dive deep into areas I would never go in—I got to say horrible things I would never believe. It was very interesting. Haylee wants so badly to be the worst kind of white person in the early pandemic era–conservative, conspiracy theorist, racist and xenophobic, MAGA in fact. The character that changed the least for me was Roxi—she was the first one I imagined and she's just as she would be as a person: pretty impossible to change.

Mandana Chaffa

The overlay of the potential oncoming Bravolebrity of the sisters is terrific because, like the pandemic, it's an inciting incident through which we can see how each character is challenged or thrives. You made a distinct choice, though, as to how to foreground that specifically, and at the end of the day, this is about the Milani sisters. Might you talk about your writing approach to these parallel and intersecting threads?

Porochista Khakpour

I think reality TV operates much like the early pandemic for me. It's another container for the plot—another restriction for me as an artist to operate with. It was a great challenge. Very of the era, of course. But I also had some experience—I've had several friends who've worked as producers on reality TV and I've been asked to be on them before. I had a tiny cameo on Shahs of Sunset actually, during early pandemic, when I was very briefly Reza's ghostwriter. He introduces me over Zoom as such. I did that for a glimpse of course, to make sure I was doing it right in the book. I love the format of reality TV, particularly the confessionals and how they engage and overlap with the planes of storytelling. Asides, footnotes, voiceovers, digressions, etc.—these are my favorite artistic devices.

Mandana Chaffa

Beyond national identity, there's economic identity, yes? Being wealthy, regardless of culture, confers upon one certain rights and privileges, and you examine so much of the thoughtless and breathtaking levels of consumption there are in these communities. The variety of catastrophes are sharply different depending upon one's location and economics: Iranians in the mother country versus here; wealthy families living in enormous estates versus those living in small spaces.

Porochista Khakpour

Yes, the bulk of my research here had to do with class more than anything. I am not even vaguely from the world of the Milanis.

Mandana Chaffa

I've touched on how memorably you employ satire to depict our flawed social media-obsessed society. Beyond such weighty issues, this is a genuinely fun, and funny, novel. Would you talk about the craft of comedy in fiction form?

Porochista Khakpour

I think all my fiction has been darkly comic with elements of satire. That's where I am most comfortable always. It's what I like to read and really sort of my worldview. I think it's very Iranian also, to laugh at tragedy.

Mandana Chaffa

With the publication of Tehrangeles, and related activities, what would you like to focus on next creatively? Is there a screenplay in the works for the sisters?

Porochista Khakpour

I have wrapped up my sixth book, which is a story collection, as well as a dog memoir. I have a sequel planned for Tehrangeles but let's see how it does, if it gets to that. And yes, there has been some Hollywood talk, but nothing set in stone yet. I'd love to see this be a TV series, Crazy Rich West Asians meets Euphoria! What a dream that would be.