“A funny, insightful memoir” (Kirkus Reviews) about growing up Iranian in America, and the quest to make it as an actor in Hollywood and never have to wear a turban, tote a bomb, or get kicked in the face by Chuck Norris.

After he emigrated with his family to the united states during the Iranian Revolution, Maz Jobrani spent the majority of his youth trying to squeeze in along with his adopted culture-learning to play baseball and religiously watching Dallas. But non-e of his attempts at assimilation produced a difference to about I’m Not a Terrorist, But I’ve Played One On TV: Memoirs of a Middle Eastern Crazy Man casting directors, who just auditioned him for the part of kebab-eating, bomb-toting, extremist psychopath.

When he first began in display business, Maz endured suggestions that he spice up his stand-up act by wearing “the outfit,” fielded queries approximately rising gas prices, and was jeered for his supposed involvement in the Iran hostage crisis. In fact, these exact things happened so often that he started to wonder: Could I be a terrorist without also knowing it? So when all he seemed to be offered were assignments that required searching menacingly Arabic, he considered if he’d ever make it in the us.

This laugh-out-loud memoir chronicles a lifetime of both killing it and bombing on stage, with “plenty to say about matters of race, assimilation, embarrassing family, life in America for brown-skinned people before and after 9/11, the vagaries of international pop culture, and making it in big, dumb, fizzy, sometimes beautiful America” (THE BRAND NEW York Times).