A drive into the countryside beyond Paris turns surreal in Don't Go to the Reception with Friends of the Groom! a mischievously disorienting fantasia that mirrors the immigrant's sense of dislocation. With serio-comic intensity, Reza Daneshvar gives us the inherent absurdity of the exile trying to negotiate another culture's darkest recesses.
From Don't Go to the Reception with Friends of the Groom!
When they left the city, a thick fog greeted them; the car was gradually swallowed up as if it were driving into an ocean.
"Oh, it's lovely, all this fog!" the woman exclaimed.
"How can we see the signs? We're bound to get lost," said Hassan-aqa, apprehensive.
"Don't worry, my husband's eyes are sharper than an eagle's." And she suddenly burst out laughing. Hassan-aqa had just discovered that the lenses of her husband's glasses, thick as wine-bottle bottoms, were heavily coated with mist....
$12.95
translated by Catherine Porter
18 pages
ISBN 0-9702498-6-1
