Straw Hat Meets Paul Bunyan at the Johnny Appleseed Farmer's Market

If this is what it takes to publish, I'm out.  This is the formulaic, what is expected delivery of a tract house in Orange County.  The fish in there is bland, swimming in a bloody lake of pomegranate juice for crying out loud.  After reading it, I couldn't even burp.

In The Son in Law, a short story by Nahid Rachlin (am I to believe this is how we get closer to Iran? liberal style?), Ms. Rachlin arbitrates a overly long insulting look at American men who wear blue jeans and 'over shop' just after playing roughly with their toddlers.  One paragraph would have sufficed and it would read, "Intellectual Savek era Iranian exiles working in the Ivy League industry of law and books are above love and find time to cherish a look back with their eyes wide closed to the bitter poverty of the Shell Oil Company and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco, Inc in order to dismiss the fourth grade reading level of Trump supporters who read US News while taking heavy gulps of MJB between bites of Pillsbury Toaster Strudel (apple of course).  And then they decide to bounce their grandchild on their knee."

I think of Reagan's token of appreciation sent to the Shah.  A machine that printed actual one hundred dollar bills.  Legitimate one hundred dollar bills, perhaps a myth but all the same.  Knowing what the Bush Family did to aid Saddam Hussein pretty much substantiates the nefarious activities between the Republican Party and the 'regimes'.  Even Carter played his part in the neverending story of 'since the car was invented and oil discovered' Great American Novel.

Being who I am and knowing what I know, I am forced to wonder, is this an exile from Khomeini, one of those poor formerly wealthy Shahbites who, if truth be told, likely has the sophistication of a wealthy teenager from any number of elitist left wing high schools that pepper so much of this country   And write so much of this countries literary trash.

Lines like, "Their English was inadequate and their expertise, hers in Iranian history and his in criminal law, didn't transfer to the new job market. They worked at un-challenging jobs, she as a hairdresser and he for a mail order plant and garden equipment company," demonstrate, at least to me that never was there a time where assimilation translated to such complete unadulterated hypocrisy.

I came upon Ms. Rachlin's name amongst a bevvy of would be writers while looking into the whereabouts of an old, um, friend.  Who has recently broken a leg in a couple of places after being run down by a car, karma style.  I also noticed his stairway to literary heaven placed a few Arabic tomes just below Dante.  I had to wonder when he might let that go, the war that was 'all about' me.  Speedy recovery sir!  

I searched for at least one of her short stories to determine if I'd found a pot of gold.  To have finally found an Iranian writer who could tell the truth, not only about Iran but about her self.  And I wasn't truly disappointed.  Only perhaps in my own hard desire to find a legitimate writer instead of one of these narrative creators who are enlisted by the status quo of the academia minded and controlled publishing houses.  The 110% of which are left leaning liberal fascists that have about as much love for the real culture of post Khomeini Iran as they do for John motherfucker Bolton.  

Read it for yourselves and depending on how you like your tacos con cabeza, I guarantee you, you'll be delighted either way.  By the story or by this biting review.

http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/81/rachlin_f.php?fbclid=IwAR1jAPlPBTTQecwkqYg40k41zqQ-7KUwGOjFqb5-YqW1e9_7dqlnsAnV5ng