When skateboards will be free

by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh

"The revolution is not only inevitable, it is imminent. It is not only imminent, it is quite imminent. And when the time comes, my father will lead it."With a profound gift for capturing the absurd in life, and a deadpan wisdom that comes from surviving a surreal childhood in the Socialist Workers Party, Said Sayrafiezadeh has crafted an unsentimental, funny, heartbreaking memoir.Said's Iranian-born father and American Jewish mother had one thing in common: their unshakable conviction that the workers' revolution was coming. Separated since their son was nine months old, they each pursued a dream of the perfect socialist society. Pinballing with his mother between makeshift Pittsburgh apartments, falling asleep at party meetings, longing for the luxuries he's taught to despise, Said waits for the revolution that never, ever arrives. "Soon," his mother assures him, while his long-absent father quixotically runs as a socialist candidate for president in an Iran about to fall under the ay