Chapter 21: Cyrus 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 21 opens in June 2012 at Keady University, during a violent Indiana summer storm. Cyrus Shams is working the phones at Jade Café, an all-night Chinese takeout on campus, and dating Kathleen, a business graduate student from a wealthy Arizona family. Kathleen is the first Republican and the first genuinely rich person Cyrus has ever dated — her family is oil-rich, with a helicopter pilot and a nanny, and she once mentioned that John McCain attended her college graduation party.

The chapter interweaves Cyrus's present with painful memories from his Midwestern Iranian childhood after 9/11. His middle school math teacher once hung a George Bush poster and later whispered a racial slur at Cyrus, laughing as if they shared a joke. A social studies teacher praised