In the opening story, “Bazaar Bozorg,” a woman living in Toronto returns to Tehran to help the sister who betrayed her trust. “The Late Bloomer” explores the nuances of sex and power, while “Kafkaesque” shows a father working through the complications that come with divorce. “The Fruit on the Farthest Branch” offers a touching scene between a father- and son-in-law. “After the Election,” “The Naked Dream,” and “Dayi” all invoke the specter of violence, political and domestic, that lurk in everyday life. Ironically, the title story is one of the weakest. But overall, these dozen stories depict a fascinating array of Iranians, mostly in the diaspora, journeying through 21st-century life. These characters, usually erudite—Ph.D. candidates, librarians, and the like, as well as parents and siblings who have joined them in Canada or remained in Tehran—manage entanglements with lovers, exes, spouses, siblings, and friends. One of the characters in “Stray Dandelions” has a motto that also defines a central preoccupation of the book: “stay and perish; leave and flourish.” While this sentiment may ring familiar to many diasporic communities, author Kashani grounds his stories in cultural and historic specificity without necessarily leaning on identity as a primary undercurrent. His writing style is straightforward, and the lack of fuss makes these stories compulsively readable. He tends to dive right in to his main concern, the relationship dynamics among his characters, and the intrigue lies in their interactions with one another, their actions and reactions in the environments where they’ve chosen to live, for better or worse, rather than in flowery language or experiments with form.