Excerpt from A Good Country by Laleh Khadivi, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The midterm grades were e-mailed that afternoon and Rez forgot. He took the bus home and skated to his door and found his father, at three thirty, on the front steps of the house, a thin piece of paper in his hands, tie loose, eyebrows pushed together. Rez felt his stomach jump and he kicked the skateboard into his hand and dropped his head and ran through the classes. Math. Chemistry. Physics. English. Spanish. Government. Logic. History, it was history; it had to be history and the quiz on the first Iraq war the night after the bonfire. He took the quiz without studying and thought his GPA would cover it, but now his father was on the steps, which meant a B was printed on that paper and the ceremony would begin.

It started the same way it always started. His father silent and Rez silent and then the first question.

Do you like your life?

Rez knew there was only one right answer. Yes.

You have enough to eat? Good clothes to wear? A nice school to go to?

Yes, Dad, I forgot the quiz was that day

It is not important. What is important is that you like your life.

You are taken care of. Am I correct?

Rez said nothing, in the script he was to remain silent, and silence was the safest bet, the fastest route to the end. He nodded his head in agreement.

Good. Then I have done my job. And yet you have not done yours. His father went on, his face set in anger, his mouth opening and closing around the words ungrateful, punishment, worthless, pathetic, loser, until Rez swallowed the sobs that came up his throat and tried to blink away tears filling his eyes. The rough sandpaper on his skate- board rubbed against his fingers and he thought of the apostles and how they would laugh if they saw him now, crying, and so he stopped and wiped his face and began to shout.

What did I do? Tell me what I did wrong! I didn't do anything wrong. I got a fucking B. That's all!

His father, surprised but not alarmed, closed his eyes and shook his head.

A disrespect. Your laziness is a disrespect to me, to your mother, to everything I have done for this family.

Rez heard the words, but this time they did not make it all the way down to his heart. He stepped outside himself and saw a boy, nearly as tall as his father, a father, a tyrant without cause, a mass of dark and aimless energy. He saw the boy in a bright light, innocent and right, and the father, misguided and dim, his only power humiliation. Rez kept shouting until his mother came to the kitchen window, until the squeaky eager yells of an eleventh grader came out, until he was shaking with the words Fuck you and I hate you and You are an asshole, so loudly and with such fury he could not pull back the new bold spirit fast enough, could not push himself back into the body of the boy in time to move out of the line of slaps that sprang from his father's palm onto his soft waiting face.





He skated the two miles to Matthews's house, some of it crying, some of it running. Matthews and Johnson played Xbox and said What's up? but didn't look at him. Rez didn't say anything and waited and finally Johnson looked up.

What the fuck, man? You look like a bitch that's just been dumped.

Your face is all puffy.

Rez tried to swallow and put his hands in his pockets to keep them from shaking.

Whatever, man. Wanna go to the cove?

They stared at him for a moment and then another moment and Matthews threw his controller on the couch.

Yeah, let's do it. The cove. Today's a good day for the cove.

They picked up Kelly, and when they got to the cove, they walked around it and cleaned up the trash before saying one word. It was an old habit, a leftover from their elementary school beach-cleaning field trips. When Johnson's backpack was filled with pulped cigarette cartons, chip bags, used condoms, and spent lighters, they sat down in a circle. Cool clouds came in from the west, low and to the water, and a damp, icy breeze filled the shallow cove. Rez lifted his face to meet it, to let it press all over the hot prints in the shape of his father's fast hands.

Excerpted from A Good Country by Laleh Khadivi. Copyright © 2017 by Laleh Khadivi. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury USA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.