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Terence Ward is a magician: he combines family history, a family quest, political and religious history of Iran, deep look into Islam and its manifestations (with comments that really help me understand the difference between the Sunnis and the Shia), and a long look at Zoroastrianism and its role in Judaism and Christianity.

It is all woven together with acute observations of how a family that spent many years in Iran, leaving in 1969, was received when they returned; their interactions with the Iranian (and other)people they encountered and were searching for. Ward also shows us the gentle, loving, open-hearted and morally upright philosophy with which his parents raised their children, and how that shaped the 4 brothers, and impacted (especially) the people they were searching for, but actually all the people they encountered in their travels in 1998.

At the denouement, I cried, and turned the pages back so I could read it again.
On a lighter note, I discovered the Hassan's recipe for tagid, the crusty bottom part of Iranian baked rice (it's super good).