Susanne Pari's In the Time of Our History focuses on an Iranian American immigrant family between New Jersey and San Francisco in the 1990s. The novel is inspired by the author's own family's experiences following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. While people of Iranian descent have lived in the United States since at least the 1930s, immigration from Iran to America surged after the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during the revolution, as a strict Islamic regime took over. More people left the country for the US to flee the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, and the Iranian American population has continued to grow steadily since.

The majority of Iranian Americans today live in Southern California, primarily the Los Angeles area — and also in and around San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego and Sacramento. Possible reasons for this include pre-existing communities established by earlier Iranian immigrants and temporary residents living in these places (many of them students and ...