Go Home – Sohrab Fracis

The story of Viraf, a Parsi foreign student in Delaware, who in the turbulent wake of the Iran hostage crisis can’t distinguish his redneck oppressors from his Deadhead neighbors. And the story of a violent world that is nevertheless slowly coming together.

PRAISE FOR GO HOME

“At the heart of Sohrab Homi Fracis’s poignant new novel, Go Home, is the question of one’s place in the world, the answer never more ambiguous or fragile than for the immigrant or exile, when a person’s condition of homelessness is in transition, neither here nor there. Given the cultural moment, I’m grateful to Fracis for his highly topical reexamination of the American Dream, a still reliable but never easy remedy for all those yearning to reinvent themselves beyond the constrictions of tribe and nation. And in Go Home, assimilation, sometimes a wretched exercise, can also be a hilarious and uplifting affair.”

– Bob Shacochis, author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul (Dayton Literary Peace Prize) and Easy in the Islands (National Book Award)

“I read Go Home with great pleasure and lots of empathy for the displaced and somewhat mystified but always lovable Viraf and his misadventures in America. The author’s (and Viraf’s) powers of observation as well as the period he covers — Deadheads and Pintos, great fun — are distinctive qualities of his engrossing account of the immigrant experience.”

– Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce and Persian Nights, and co-scriptwriter of The Shining

“Go Home is the story of one man’s journey to build a cultural bridge across continents, crossing waters that are unsettling and unsafe. While Fracis sets the novel during one of the most turbulent decades in both India’s and the United States’ history, his writing also offers insight in today’s tense climate. Beautiful prose, wise and witty.”

– Susan Muaddi Darraj, author of A Curious Land (American Book Award, AWP Grace Paley Prize, Arab American Book Award) and The Inheritance of Exile

“This is a beautiful novel about leaving home and moving to America, old world to new, and the courageous spirit of beginning a new life. With his accurate eye and marmalade-like descriptions, Sohrab Fracis’s characters come alive. Go Home fulfills the promise of his Iowa Short Fiction Award.”

– Deepak Singh, NPR, PRI, BBC Commentator, author of How May I Help You? An Immigrant’s Journey from MBA to Minimum Wage

REVIEWS OF GO HOME

“Sohrab Homi Fracis’ debut novel is a powerful, prescient tale of moving away and longing to belong…a quest tale of the highest order…dealing in all-inclusive ideas, of who we are, where we are going, and even where–or when–we are welcome…. Fracis is both a deft realist and master mesmerist with his prose…. By book’s end, the reader is saddened to leave.”

– Daniel A. Brown, “A Place To Be,” Cover Story for FOLIO

“When we first meet him in the early ’80s, Viraf is a student slightly at odds with his heritage…. Clearly, the complex maze of his cultural allegiances makes ‘home’ a hard place to find…. [A]ssailants appear unexpectedly (encountered on an empty road) and disappear just as quickly. Unpredictability adds to their menace—no precaution will keep them away. For Viraf, this makes racist violence seem as inescapable and uncontrollable as the snow: embeds it in the landscape.”

– Tadzio Koelb, “Exile on Main Street,” The Brooklyn Rail

“Viraf’s adjustments to American culture are mitigated in intriguing ways in the novel…. Shock and unresolved grief color Viraf’s interaction with the world…with a growing hostility and wariness taking over his personality in ways that are newly poignant and even heartbreaking, considering his warmth and gregariousness towards his friends in the earlier chapters.”

– Cyril Wong, “New Contact Lenses,” Singapore Poetry

“Funny, dark, true, and poignant, Fracis found a way to talk about multiculturalism, immigrants, racism and globalization of the societies without being boring. Even if the story is in the 80s readers will eventually see that almost nothing has changed, except the cars!… But still books such as Go Home give hope that humanity is on the right way, the way of inclusivity and mutual respect.”

– Olivier Rey, Red Dirt Report

“Fracis serves his readers an experience that recreates the traveling lifestyle of an outsider…. This provides a painfully intimate snapshot of how one’s sense of identity can break when he or she fails to find belonging within a community…. Whether violence targets those perceived to be fraternizing over lines of color and caste or those from foreign lands, humans attack other humans. [Go Home] pose[s] the thought: are our enemies so real, or did we create them because of the acts of a few? If created through the acts of a few, we should judge our actions just as carefully.”

– Emery Duffey, Southern Fried Karma

Sohrab’s timely novel, GO HOME