Farahan, Reza
9781464218279, 1464218277
Hardcover
 
Shahs of Sunset's Reza Farahan shares his story as the ultimate outsider, growing up as a gay immigrant in America after the Iranian revolution, and how the unique identity that once isolated him eventually led to a life of happiness and success.
 
Reza Farahan came to America at the age of four on vacation with his family. While soaking up the California sun, the revolution in Iran began, and Reza's family would stay on their vacation indefinitely, never able to return home again.
 
Reza had revered the Shah in Iran, a man whom he saw as the embodiment of progressive ideals, opulence, and ambition. And watching from afar in America, Reza was horrified to see the Shah overthrown by the Ayatollah. The world he had always known would no longer exist, and now he was stuck in a new one where people saw him as a product of the new Iran.
 
From that point on, Reza was the ultimate outsider. He was an Iranian immigrant living in an America that labeled his people as terrorists. He was half-Muslim and half-Jewish, with both sides of his extended family refusing to see him as wholly theirs. And to top it all off, he was a gay kid growing up in the '70s and '80s, afraid to be himself, even in his own Persian bubble.
 
Emotional, funny, and raw, Memoirs of a Gay Shah is Reza's story of growing up as an outsider, who, in the face of constant rejection and isolation, diminished his presence and hid his true self for as long as possible. But eventually, Reza would come to learn that the things that make him an outsider are also what make him unique. His greatest assets are his differences, and with this newfound confidence, he began to pursue the life of a Shah—one of incredible luxury, progressive acceptance, unapologetic authenticity.