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A review by aleffert
The Last Illusion by Porochista Khakpour
4.0
By accident, I read two 9/11 books in a row. This was the second after Pynchon's [b: Bleeding Edge|17208457|Bleeding Edge|Thomas Pynchon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1369067221s/17208457.jpg|23688523]. It's hard to imagine two books with more different takes on a historical event. In Bleeding Edge, 9/11 was just one more particle of cosmic background paranoia that's at the core of all of Pynchon's work. In the Last Illusion, 9/11 is basically the last tock in a clockwork universe.
The Last Illusion, inspired by a Persian folk tale, starts with a boy who is raised as a bird by his mother. He is rescued, and brought to New York where he is raised by a war hearted man/expert on feral children. Zal, the boy, grows up pretty normal, all things considered, which is to say he ends up as a familiar confused teenager type, albeit with a penchant for chocolate covered insects and a lack of pop culture awareness.
Anyway, he meets a girl with lots of issues including MYSTERIOUS VISIONS of an upcoming WORLD TRADE CENTER RELATED DISASTER. And they have a lovely and tragic codependent relationship that explores a lot of the difficulties of being with someone with a mental illness. I didn't really think the 9/11 as magical realism worked over all, but it did help create a really effective feeling of impending doom that ran through the back half of the book.
There's also a running subplot with a magician who speaks in this unbelievably annoying, fake celebrity patois.
The Last Illusion, inspired by a Persian folk tale, starts with a boy who is raised as a bird by his mother. He is rescued, and brought to New York where he is raised by a war hearted man/expert on feral children. Zal, the boy, grows up pretty normal, all things considered, which is to say he ends up as a familiar confused teenager type, albeit with a penchant for chocolate covered insects and a lack of pop culture awareness.
Anyway, he meets a girl with lots of issues including MYSTERIOUS VISIONS of an upcoming WORLD TRADE CENTER RELATED DISASTER. And they have a lovely and tragic codependent relationship that explores a lot of the difficulties of being with someone with a mental illness. I didn't really think the 9/11 as magical realism worked over all, but it did help create a really effective feeling of impending doom that ran through the back half of the book.
There's also a running subplot with a magician who speaks in this unbelievably annoying, fake celebrity patois.