Read to Know Basis: Porochista Khakpour
The author of Tehrangeles balances satire and empathy.
Read to Know Basis is a weekly interview series with authors. It features debut authors and established writers talking about reading, writing, and of course snacks. This series is free to all. If you like what you read considering subscribing to support the work of Unstacked, and of course go out and buy the book!
Porochista Khakpour was born in Tehran and raised in Los Angeles's San Gabriel Valley. Her most recent book, Tehrangeles: A Novel, came out in June 2024 (Pantheon), and was an Indie Next Pick, an NPR Book of the Day, one of TIME's 25 Most Anticipated Books of 2024, as well as one of the "Best Books of 2024 (So Far)" by Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, W, and more. She is the author of two previous novels, Sons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove, 2007), The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, 2014). Her widely acclaimed third book Sick: A Memoir (Harper Perennial, 2018) was a Best Book of 2018 according to TIME, Real Simple, Entropy, Mental Floss, Bitch Media, and more. In 2020 she wrote an essay collection Brown Album: Essays on Exile & Identity (Vintage, May 2020) that was widely praised. Her other writing has appeared in many sections of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bookforum, Elle, Slate, and many others. She is a contributing editor at Evergreen Review and lives in NYC.
What are five words to describe your book?
Chaotic, fun, weird, harrowing, girlypop
How did writing your book change you as a person?
It nudged me to rediscover fun in my writing practice. Fun is contagious for your reader. It also taught me how nourishing it can be to create satire that still has heart, as the book ended up becoming a very challenging exploration of empathy for me personally. I’ve always felt rich people were a species I did not need to understand and yet here I was trying to understand them properly!
What is the strangest thing you googled while researching/writing this book?
5G conspiracy theories in the early pandemic era, the history of Hot Pockets, and this one 2013 episode of The Kardashians where Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney create a contest to see whose, um, “vaginal secretions” (how else can I put this?) tastes best (Kim wins).
Describe your ideal reader?
Outsiders and misfits. Also: smart, funny, interesting women (especially marginalized women: women of color, disabled women, queer women, etc) who don’t consider any pleasure “guilty” or who are in the process of learning this.
What is your favorite punctuation mark?
Em-dash forever
What is a piece of writing advice that you’ve received that you think is really bad? What is a piece of writing advice that you think is really good?
I think “write every day” is really impractical and sometimes just unnecessary. Labor for the sake of labor is not for me. And I could never afford to write every day. Write when inspired and then really stay with it is more my way!
Good advice: just go on to the next project. Keep writing. A book’s reception is not your business as much as the composition of the next one.
What are you reading right now? And what book are you desperate to read next?
I am reading Mateo Askaripour’s This Great Hemisphere.
I can’t wait for Emma Carmichael’s WNBA oral history, which only recently was acquired by S&S but I really need it ASAP!
What book are you an evangelist for?
Two debuts by queer Iranian men I adore: Khashayar J. Khabushani’s I Will Greet the Sun Again & Navid Sinaki’s Medusa of the Roses.
Who is your literary crush?
Writers, dead: Franz Kafka
Writer, living: Constance Debre
If you could not be a writer what would you do?
I would love to be a florist or someone whose artistic medium is flowers. Or a baker. Or the owner of a doggie daycare facility.
What is one thing in the culture people are very into that you are extremely out on?
Discussions surrounding skincare have bored me and only me, it seems, to death.
You’re invited to a literary potluck, what are you bringing?
Persian food! Ghormeh sabzi stew, lavash bread and butter, feta cheese and herbs, doogh (a salty yogurt soda drink that is a national treasure and everyone has to try once), and sholeh zard (saffron rice pudding). Oh wait, I forgot this was supposed to be literary? For writers: electrolyte powder and more interesting forms of caffeine (matcha, hojicha, yerba mate?) since we all know they are made of coffee.
Connect with Porochista: Instagram | Twitter | Website | Substack | Bluesky
Read to Know Basis is a weekly interview series with authors talking about reading, writing, and of course snacks. This series is free to all. If you like what you read considering upgrading to a paid subscription to support the work of Unstacked, and of course go out and buy the book!
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Thanks so much, Traci, I feel so grateful! I love your series here. Thank you for including me here.
I didn’t think the Kardashians could go lower in my estimations. But here we are, tasting and rating secretions.