Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of a Global Citizen
Firoozeh Dumas, 2008
Random House
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345499578
Summary
Mining her rich Persian heritage with dry wit and a bold spirit, Firoozeh Dumas puts her own unique mark on the themes of family, community, and tradition.
Explaining crossover cultural food fare, Dumas says, “The weirdest American culinary marriage is yams with melted marshmallows. I don’t know who thought of this Thanksgiving tradition, but I’m guessing a hyperactive, toothless three-year-old.”
On Iranian wedding anniversaries: “It just initially seemed odd to celebrate the day that ‘our families decided we should marry even though I had never met you, and frankly, it’s not working out so well.’ ” Dumas also documents her first year as a new mother, the experience of taking fifty-one family members on a birthday cruise to Alaska, and a road trip to Iowa with an American once held hostage in Iran.
Droll, moving, and relevant, Laughing Without an Accent shows how our differences can unite us–and provides indelible proof that Firoozeh Dumas is a humorist of the highest order. (From the publisher.)