Chapter 17: Ali Shams — Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

Chapter 17 shifts perspective to Ali Shams, Cyrus’s father, and offers a quiet, meditative portrait of his life in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Ali works at a chicken breeder farm—not a typical farm, but a biosecure facility that produces the grandparents of the chickens people eventually eat. The goal of the operation is selective breeding: to create a chicken that converts grain into protein as quickly and cheaply as possible. The birds have had their immune systems bred out of them, so any outside germ could wipe out an entire flock. Ali leaves home at five in the morning while his young son Cyrus still sleeps, and at work he showers and changes into scrubs, like a nurse.

At home, Ali maintains a simple routine. On Saturdays he cooks large pots of stew and rice to last the week. Friday nights are reserved for frozen pizza and movies with Cyrus, who borrows VHS tapes or DVDs from the library. They watch Westerns—John Wayne and Clint Eastwood—and comedies that make Cyrus laugh. During basketball season they follow the Pacers, admiring Reggie Miller’s mean streak and rooting for Muslim players like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Hakeem Olajuwon. Ali buys gin in bulk, half-gallon plastic bottles with British names, and drinks heavily, calling it “filthy medicine.”

At the farm, biosecurity rules prevent workers from bringing in their own food, so the managers stock the break room with unlimited vegetarian snacks. Ali eats bean burritos and frozen rice dishes. The other workers are mostly immigrants, and they speak English together to practice. They talk about sports, women, and especially food. A Congolese coworker, Jean-Joseph, describes cassava, fufu, and fish; Ali shares what he knows about Iranian dishes like koobideh and pomegranate molasses. But because nothing can be shared physically, the descriptions live only in their heads. One day Jean-Joseph excitedly tells the Spanish workers that tamales reminded him of kwanga from home—but no one knows what kwanga is.

Ali’s job involves walking from barn to barn collecting eggs buried in the shavings, often covered in droppings. He sets them on monorail trays, careful not to break them. After lunch, he and a Guatemalan coworker named Edgar wash the eggs one by one, thousands each day, six days a week, for years. Edgar complains about football and his kids and tells dirty jokes; Ali mostly listens.

Meanwhile, Cyrus grows into an independent boy. He reads constantly, teaches himself chess from a book using a hand-drawn board, and writes for his school newspaper—something Ali didn’t even know existed. Cyrus shares facts with his father: male seahorses carry babies, the sun is a nuclear furnace, how to count to ten in Russian. He dreams of writing songs for Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen, and of moving to China to teach Mandarin. Ali often responds with practical remarks like “Well, you’d better clean the kitchen first.”

One day Cyrus shows Ali a picture of a 4,000-year-old clay tablet from Babylon or Sumer. Ali expects something holy, but the tablet is actually a complaint about receiving the wrong grade of copper in a business transaction. Cyrus laughs and calls it an “ancient one-star review.” Ali is struck by the image and keeps thinking about it for weeks. He reflects on the hadith of the starving man, in which God sends a dying man a baby to care for instead of food or water, giving him purpose. Ali muses that science advances—chickens grow in a month, planes cross the world, missiles fly—but human souls remain unchanged, festering with self-pity and the arrogance of victimhood. The chapter closes with Ali’s repetitive routine: go to work, find the eggs, eat, clean the eggs, go home, eat with Cyrus, watch basketball or a movie, drink, sleep, and repeat.

Key Events

Ali describes his work at a biosecure chicken breeder farm in Fort Wayne.
He leaves home at 5 a.m. while Cyrus sleeps and changes into scrubs at work.
At home, Ali cooks weekly stews and shares Friday-night pizza and movies with Cyrus.
Ali buys gin in bulk and drinks heavily as a coping mechanism.
At work, immigrant coworkers discuss food but cannot share it due to biosecurity rules.
Cyrus grows independent: he reads, teaches himself chess, writes for the school newspaper, and shares facts with Ali.
Cyrus shows Ali the ancient Babylonian copper complaint tablet, which sparks Ali’s reflection.
Ali recalls the hadith of the starving man and contemplates the unchanging nature of human souls.
The chapter ends with Ali’s repetitive daily routine of work, eating, cleaning eggs, and drinking.

Character Development

Ali Shams emerges as a deeply introspective but emotionally restrained man. He describes himself as a slow thinker, often missing the moment to speak because his thoughts lag behind the conversation. His wife Roya used to call him a good listener, but he admits he was mostly just a bad talker. Ali’s relationship with Cyrus is tender but distant—he provides care and routine but struggles to connect with his son’s intellectual world. His reflections on the copper tablet and the hadith reveal a man wrestling with grief, self-pity, and the weight of survival. He acknowledges the “arrogance of victimhood” and the suffocating nature of his own suffering, yet he continues his routine without complaint, accepting each new day as an unthinkable refusal.

Cyrus is portrayed as almost an adult from the beginning—curious, self-sufficient, and intellectually advanced. He rarely asks about his mother or uncle, and Ali only tells him about them when asked. Cyrus’s independence is both a source of pride and a reminder of how little Ali truly knows him. His enthusiasm for learning and his ability to laugh at the absurdity of the ancient complaint tablet contrast sharply with Ali’s heavier, more melancholic worldview.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Industrial farming and selective breeding: The chickens are bred to be efficient machines, stripped of immune systems—a metaphor for the way modern life prioritizes productivity over natural resilience.
Immigrant labor and isolation: The workers share language and food memories but are physically separated by biosecurity, symbolizing the loneliness of immigrant experience.
Food as cultural memory: Descriptions of Iranian, Congolese, and Mexican dishes become a way to preserve identity when actual sharing is impossible.
The hadith of the starving man: Ali interprets it as a lesson about purpose through caregiving—a baby gives the dying man a reason to live, just as Cyrus gives Ali a reason to continue.
The copper complaint tablet: Represents the unchanging nature of human pettiness and self-centeredness across millennia, contrasting with scientific progress.
Science vs. soul-learning: Ali contrasts the easy accumulation of facts with the slow, painful work of moral and emotional growth, which cannot be passed down in books.
Alcoholism as coping: Ali’s bulk gin purchases and nightly drinking serve as a numbing ritual, a way to endure the monotony and grief of his life.
Repetitive labor and routine: The endless cycle of collecting and washing eggs mirrors Ali’s emotional stagnation and his acceptance of a life without choice.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter provides crucial depth to Ali Shams, who has been a background figure in earlier chapters. It humanizes him beyond his role as Cyrus’s father, revealing his inner life, his grief over Roya’s murder, and his philosophical musings on suffering and purpose. The chapter also introduces key motifs—the hadith, the copper tablet, and the idea of unchanging human nature—that resonate with the novel’s broader themes of martyrdom, meaning, and the search for transcendence. Ali’s reflections on the arrogance of victimhood and the impossibility of soul-learning set up a contrast with Cyrus’s later quest for meaning, making this chapter essential for understanding the novel’s central concerns.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Ali’s work at the chicken farm reflect his emotional state?

Ali’s work is repetitive, isolating, and physically demanding—collecting eggs from biosecure barns and washing them one by one. This mirrors his emotional numbness and his acceptance of a life defined by routine rather than fulfillment. The chickens themselves, bred to be efficient machines without immune systems, parallel Ali’s own sense of being stripped of resilience and forced to function mechanically. His inability to share food with coworkers due to biosecurity also echoes his emotional isolation from others.

2. What does the ancient copper complaint tablet symbolize for Ali?

For Ali, the tablet represents the unchanging nature of human souls. Despite thousands of years of scientific progress, people still complain about petty grievances and remain obsessed with their own suffering. Ali connects this to his own self-pity and the “arrogance of victimhood,” recognizing that his grief over Roya’s murder and his difficult life are not unique or ennobling. The tablet becomes a mirror for his own tendency to dwell on wounds, and it prompts him to question whether any real moral progress is possible.

3. How does the hadith of the starving man shape Ali’s understanding of his role as a father?

Ali initially finds the hadith confusing—why send a baby instead of food or water? But he comes to see that the baby gives the starving man a purpose, a reason to keep living. In the same way, Cyrus gives Ali a reason to endure his own suffering. Ali’s care for Cyrus—cooking stews, watching movies, providing a stable routine—becomes his own form of purpose, even if he often feels disconnected from his son’s inner world. The hadith thus frames Ali’s fatherhood as a kind of salvation, albeit a quiet and unglamorous one.