Q&A with Abdi Nazemian, Author of ABC Pick “Only This Beautiful Moment”

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of hosting a launch event for Abdi Nazemian’s brilliant new YA novel, Only This Beautiful Moment. To celebrate the release of this incredible book, which I have been looking forward to since its announcement earlier this year, Abdi had a fascinating discussion with actress-activist Tara Grammy about the inspiration and process behind Only This Beautiful Moment. Like the book itself, their conversation was inspiring and incredibly moving, and I feel so lucky that I had the opportunity to host one of my all-time favorite authors. Set against the vibrant backdrops of Tehran and Los Angeles, Only This Beautiful Moment follows three generations of Iranian men as they come of age, begin to question their identities, and seek to reconcile years of family trauma. Ultimately, Abdi’s extraordinary book is a testament to the power of love and the beautiful moments we share to bring us together. Read below to learn more about our June book club pick, Only This Beautiful Moment!

What inspired Only This Beautiful Moment and when did you start writing it?

 This book, like many of my books, began as a completely different novel. That one, which I started writing in early quarantine, was about a young woman navigating her way through Old Hollywood, a world I’ve been obsessed with since I was a kid. I was likely writing about that world because in early pandemic days, I went back to watching a lot of old movies, which comforted me with their world of fantasy when I was an isolated kid. When our kids’ school shut down, I would teach them about one diva a day, and we covered everyone from Rita Hayworth to Elizabeth Taylor to Diana Ross to Joan Crawford. Yes, I’m an absurd human, but we do have fun.

With a lot of inspiration from my editor, I took the world of those pages and transformed them into a far more personal story. The character navigating Old Hollywood became the first of three men in the same Iranian family who would narrate the book. And in that transformation, I got to explore much deeper subject matter, from the fractured but powerful bonds of family to queer history to the history of Western intervention in the Middle East. It’s by far my most personal book, and the one that means the most to me.

I love how the book follows three generations of Iranian men during their transformative teenage years. How did you decide to weave the three generations together, and what was your writing process like? Was it ever difficult to keep track of these intersecting timelines?

The decision to weave three generations together happened organically when I decided that those pages I wrote about Old Hollywood would be the launching point for a multi-generational story. Once I made that decision, I started to think about who the next two generations would be, and I chose to focus on three men because I felt this was a real opportunity to explore the ways that expectations of masculinity would hamper these men’s relationship with each other over generations.

I didn’t have much trouble keeping track of the timelines honestly. Once I unlocked the book, I did a lot of research and then I just wrote and wrote and wrote. I don’t outline until after I have a first draft, so once I had rough pages, I went back and made myself a spreadsheet to make sure everything tracked. It was roughly the same creative process as my novel LIKE A LOVE STORY, which also had three primary protagonists. I love exploring different points of view in a story. It’s a way to show that every situation can be seen from a different lens, which hopefully inspires empathy in readers.

Only This Beautiful Moment is our book club pick for this month! Are there any specific book club questions surrounding themes, quotes, or characters that you hope people will keep in mind as they read?

ONLY THIS BEAUTIFUL MOMENT is the story of three generations of men in the same Iranian family. Each of the Jafarzadeh men – Moud, Saeed and Bobby – tells the story of a teenage journey between Los Angeles to Tehran or vice versa. Because the novel takes place in the 1930s, the 1970s, and present day, it allowed me to dig into the complex connective tissue of history, and how we’re always carrying our history within us. I hope readers ask big questions about where we are and how we got here when it comes to issues like anti-queer legislation and the fraught political relationship between the United States and the rest of the world, especially Iran. But more than anything, I hope readers understand why issues they see as purely political are deeply personal for families like the Jafarzadeh family, and I hope readers bring more curiosity to their daily lives after reading the book. I hope they take the time to get to know people’s histories, and develop a deeper empathy for others, especially immigrants and members of the queer community. We’re all carrying so much intergenerational joy, trauma, love, fear, loyalty, and we need to honor that more often by allowing everyone to be the protagonists of their own stories.

For our book club members who haven’t read the book yet, how would you describe Only This Beautiful Moment in five words?

Queer. Iranian. Family. History. Love.

In the book, Saeed, Moud, and Bobby all have role models that help guide them through their struggles with identity and belonging. What advice would you give to teenagers in the LGBTQ+ community who are seeking a support system?

Being queer and Iranian has offered me an intersectional perspective that’s been a gift, even though there’s been plenty of hardship along the way. The biggest hardship has been feeling that I never truly belonged anywhere. My identity always felt fractured between different communities. But that’s also been a gift in crucial ways. One way is that it’s forced me to create my own community. The concept of chosen family is so important to queer people, because so many of us must create our own chosen families to get the support we need and deserve. Being intersectional has also forced me to learn patience and empathy for those I love, which in turn taught me to be patient and empathic with myself. I grew up feeling so much shame, and I hope young people out there can learn the difficult work of self-forgiveness. I spent way too long blaming myself for who I am.

I’ve had my own tools that have helped me on this path, creative expression being the biggest one. Even if you’re not a writer, there are self-care tools that help us all stay grounded in the face of hate and division, from journaling to meditation to spiritual practice.

Finally, since your question mentioned the role models in this story, I’d like to say how important the concept of queer mentorship is. Queer youth need queer mentors, period. We need adults who can mirror our emotional experience, embody our history, and make us feel we’re walking a path that’s been paved for us. I urge parents of queer youth to help their kids find those mentors. And if you’re a queer kid, look for those mentors too. The first person to show me queer films and queer life was a teacher at my high school. The first person I came out to was a different high school teacher, a decade before I came out to my parents. If I hadn’t had those mentors to begin my journey of self-acceptance, who knows where I’d be today?

One of my favorite things about the book was how Moud, Saeed, and Bobby were all so complex and realistic. Did you draw inspiration from your own life when creating these characters? I imagine that Saeed’s dog, Frisco, is a shout-out to your adorable real-life dog, Disco!

I tend to write from a place of lived emotion, while changing all the details. The characters and relationships in the book are very much drawn from my emotional experience, but in the process of creating fiction, all the details change. Part of the fun of writing fiction for me is getting to rewrite my experiences in new and exciting ways. And yes, Frisco is very much an homage to our beloved dog Disco, who loves your bookshop!

I love how both Only This Beautiful Moment and Like A Love Story are celebrations of LGBTQ history. Are there other historical events/eras that you hope to highlight in later books?

I never plot out my books or plan them in advance so it’s hard to predict which specific eras or events I might dig into in future books, but history fascinates me and I hope I’m not done exploring queer history, especially hidden or invisible queer history. I’ve written projects in other mediums that have sadly not been made that I hope and pray do get made someday. One was about students in Harvard in the late 1910s and early 1920s who were put through a secret court by the university when their queer life was discovered. It’s a tragic story that the university covered up for too long, and also a story about how queer life and joy always existed. Another is a movie adaptation of a documentary called Out of Iraq about two Iraqi gay men who fall in love against the backdrop of the U.S. invasion of their country. One is a translator, the other an Iraqi soldier. The story is joyful, but also incredibly sad when the men are separated for years because of our immigration system. Both these projects shine a light on queer communities we don’t see often depicted, which is all I want to do with my work.

Although the book deals with generations of family trauma, misunderstanding, and heartbreak, two of the central themes of Only This Beautiful Moment are also forgiveness and the importance of family connection despite disagreements. What lessons do you hope readers take away from the book about complex family relationships and the concept of acceptance?

Thank you for this question. It’s quite possibly the subject matter I’m most passionate about talking to young people about. As a queer Iranian, I felt completely invisible in my own cultural community. I still don’t feel I get the acceptance I crave from the Iranian community. And yet, because I understand the context, and because I love my family and community with all my heart, I keep doing the work of educating, empathizing, and slowly breaking down the barriers of fear and judgment. So much of my own personal journey has been about taking a step back from my own pain to realize the generation of Iranians who came before me, including my parents, went through much worse and deserve my empathy. And they deserve to be protagonists in their own story, which is why it was exciting for me to give the Saeed character his own voice in this novel. He’s very much a version of my father’s generation of Iranian men, and on a personal level, knowing my dad read and loved the book has been so healing for me.

 But back to the question, in my life, especially after I finally came out, many of my American gay friends turned my family and the Iranian community into the bad guys of my journey. My friends spoke the language of American self-empowerment, which tells us that if someone doesn’t accept us as we are, we should bid them goodbye. I spoke the language of immigrant families, which taught me that family loyalty comes before everything else. I often found myself defending my family and my culture when in the company of gay American friends, and then defending queer rights when in the company of my family and Iranian community. I felt caught between two worlds, and it’s been a privilege to unite those two worlds through my writing and through my life. I always speak about his when I visit schools, which makes it hilarious that so many people want to ban me from visiting schools or being taught in schools. I want to tell all the frightened parents and politicians that I’m the one out there telling young people that empathy and patience was my way through the divisions of our world. But sadly, there are those who don’t have any empathy or patience within them. I’m happy my family and my culture has stuck with me, and I’m deeply sad for all the young queer people who don’t have that love. I hope they all find beautiful chosen families to love them into being.

What books would you recommend to readers who are looking for stories like Only This Beautiful Moment?

I love a multi-generational family epic. It’s something novels can do so much better than film and television. I love the sweep and the scope of capturing history on the page, especially when it comes to immigrant families. Some favorites of the genre include Pachinko, The Joy Luck Club, Cutting for Stone, White Teeth, and Middlesex. East of Eden is one of my favorite books of all time, and has that sweep-of-time feeling too. Of course, there’s the all-time classic One Hundred Years of Solitude, a commitment of a book that I’m glad I read when I had the energy for it, ha. In the young adult space, a book I absolutely loved is Randy Ribay’s Patron Saints of Nothing. Like Only This Beautiful Moment, it’s a book that looks beyond America. And in terms of queer historical YA, one of my all-time favorites is Malindo Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club.

There are so many books that bring the Iranian experience to life, none more gorgeous than Adib Khorram’s two Darius books. Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels in the Persepolis series are must-reads for anyone curious about Iran, as is Shirin Ebadi’s book Iran Awakening.

Only This Beautiful Moment is an ode to Persian poetry, so I’d also recommend all the great poets from our history, from Rumi to Forough Farrokhzad to Saadi and Hafez and Omar Khayyam.

When he was a teenager, Saeed had to leave Iran after participating in a protest, and when he returns several decades later, he has conflicting emotions about the continuing demonstrations throughout the city. Although there is still much progress to be made worldwide, what are some beautiful moments today that give you hope?

So much gives me hope, especially being around young people. My kids and their friends give me hope. They’re so full of curiosity, empathy, and life force. They’re as passionate about social justice and saving the planet as they are about Taylor Swift and Beyoncé and makeup tutorials and cute dogs. Life with them is a constant dance party, interrupted by the kind of big conversations that happen when you’re trying to make sense of the world. I try so hard to keep the childlike part of me alive. To me, that’s the job of being an artist. To stay in touch with your inner child.

Also, when I have the honor to speak to school groups, I always leave feeling hopeful. Classroom visits make me feel better about our future. I’m so inspired by the students, and I’m in awe of all the brave educators and librarians bringing true inclusion to their schools in the face of so much intimidation.

Seeing people fight for human rights in Iran, in the United States, and all over the world, also gives me hope. Art gives me hope, always. I’m obsessed with the arts, all of them. The human ability to turn our pain and our dreams into music, stories, and visual landscapes inspires me endlessly. I love humanity, and when you hold onto love, you have an endless supply of hope to lean on.