The Last Illusion by Porochista Khakpour is based on a legend from the medieval Persian epic the Shanameh the Book of Kings. This beautiful and haunting novel is about a boy named Zal who is unwanted by his mother and is left to spend his childhood in a birdcage. He takes on rituals of being a bird and his only real companionship ends up being other birds. When word gets out that he has been spending years in this hell he is literally set free and adopted by someone in the US named Hendricks. This kind man hires a psychiatrist to help Zal find out who he is as person and what he wants from life.
Through this journey Zal explores his sexuality figuring out if he his attracted to the same or opposite sex. He meets a girl named Asiya who is as damaged as he is but in a different way. He falls in love with her but is not the best match for him. She has visions of something terrible happening to New York City.
There is also a story of a magician named Silber who Zal meets and who wants to create the illusion of making the Twin Towers disappear. Yes, Ms.Khakpour goes there. There were times when I was reading the book where I had to put it down for the fear of where the fate of her characters would end up. When that fateful unfolds in the pages of this book it literally send shivers down your spine. Truly one of the better books published about 9/11 in a fictional format.
My only complaint with this novel is I wish the author spent more time telling the reader what it was like for Zal to live in the birdcage. She gives some hints in the beginning but jumps right to the Zal in NYC. It’s a pity, because the opening pages are visually more interesting than the rest of the novel. Even so, you’ll soon forgive Ms. Khakpour because she gets into the psyche of Zal and her other characters that you literally want to reach through the pages and tell them that you understand their hurt and want to help them. You’ll also want to take a look at the Book of Kings to see what other great stories lay hidden there. When Zal continues to meet other people who are also broken birds trying to put back together the pieces of their lives, you realize that maybe we are a world of broken birds trying to take flight and try make sense of this crazy world we call life.