by Hooman Majd
First published 2025
Hooman Majd grows up in the privileged world of Iranian diplomacy, moving between San Francisco, London, and Washington DC as his father serves the pre-revolutionary government. When Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution destroys his family's status, Majd finds himself selling real estate to Iranian exiles in Beverly Hills. He stumbles into the music industry through Chris Blackwell, the Island Records founder who launched Bob Marley and U2. Blackwell gives him the playful title "minister without portfolio" as Majd rises through the company ranks. He parties with Grace Jones and Dennis Hopper at Goldeneye, Ian Fleming's former Jamaican estate. Yet success cannot erase his fundamental displacement. Airport security questions him. Border guards frisk him. He makes dangerous trips back to Iran but knows he can never permanently return. Three books about his homeland and work as an NBC consultant on Iranian affairs establish his expertise, but expertise cannot create belonging. Majd remains caught between worlds, welcomed nowhere completely, carrying the weight of revolution's aftermath wherever he travels.
Genres: american-fiction, contemporary, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: San Francisco, London, Washington DC, Beverly Hills, Jamaica
Period: Pre-Revolutionary, 1979 Revolution
320 pages · Hardcover · ZE Books