THE LION WOMEN ON TEHRAN

Author: Marjan Kamali

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Reviewer: Orielle Berry

It’s difficult not to use a string of glowing adjectives when writing about this book because it is so evocatively rendered, so exquisitely described that even though I have never visited this vibrant Persian city one can almost smell and touch the sight and sounds of this once bustling and alluring metropolis. And sense the emotions of the primary characters.

Tehran is the setting where the richly talented author Marjan Kamali (in this, her third book) places her story, a poignant account of the beautiful and enduring friendship of two girls.

Homa and Elaheh first meet at a school in the city suburbs and from their first encounter, what develops is a friendship so deep and strong that it takes them through decades and stands the test of time. But their backgrounds could not be more different. Elaheh or Ellie is the daughter of a mother for whom appearances (many superficial) are all important and when she is widowed she marries her late husband’s brother Uncle Massoud and soon enough they move into a more prosperous side of town. Meanwhile Homa lives in a far more modest area, and her carefree looks match her daring and wild character – her curly, untamed black hair and mismatched clothes a foil to Ellie’s carefully ‘curated’ appearance and neat and tidy looks, betraying her far more affluent yet possibly bourgeois background.

At school it’s seems an unlikely match made in heaven when the two girls meet. Beautifully described, Homa is portrayed as cheeky, direct and mischievous while Ellie, whose domineering mother has suffocated all that childlike magic, is shy and retiring and careful of not doing anything to rock the boat.

Homa comes from a large family as Ellie finds out when she makes her first visit to the warm and welcoming family’s home, where a charming father (who belongs to the Communist party) is open and friendly and Homa’s mother and siblings welcome Ellie unreservedly to their home – unlike Ellie’s mother who is fiercely critical of her daughter’s new friend whom she feels comes from the wrong side of the tracks and never ceases to put down.

The two widely disparate girls become instant friends – and soon Ellie puts on her brave face and joins Homa in her escapades which are so very different to the regimented, careful life her mother has planned for her. There is a beautiful description here of how the pair bunk school and in the inimitable way that children do, revel in every moment of the wild abandon of their naughty defiance of rules. And so the pair become inseparable but all the while, Kamali adeptly describes how trouble is brewing in the country.

The reader will also note how Kamali is so skilled in describing the sharp differences between the two girls … how Ellie’s mother destructively puts her choices down in a way that domineering mothers do – where she herself questions her every action and yet how Homa’s family embraces her in such an encouraging way.

“At that moment I saw Homa the way my mother would have: a lower-class girl ‘below your dignity, with whom you are stuck in a dinky school…'”

But her mother’s negative comments notwithstanding, Ellie and Homa’s friendship not only endures but becomes closer and soon enough she gathers enough courage from her bold and cheeky new friend to do things she has never dared to do – “it was impossible to be near her energy and not want to jump or act like a fool as well. I wasn’t ready but almost reflexively I imitated her position”.

The girls go through school together as we also concurrently are taken through the stormy history of Iran from its glory days in the 1950s through the dark days of the revolution when the hope of a glorious new era was dissolved as the iron rule of the ayatollahs became the newnormal at the exit of the benevolent dictatorship of the Shah.

It is this new development that sharpely accentuates the differences between the two girls and Homa and her family who had initially embraced the revolution are given a rude awakening when her father – a staunch activist – is imprisoned for his beliefs, and Homa, now a young woman is also taken in for her beliefs which are at odds with the new Iranian rule. Incarcerated, she goes through a hellish experience as she is interrogated and tortured by the prison guards. But unbeknown to her at this stage, there has been a betrayal which has led to her arrest.

As we fast forward several years, Ellie is now a sophisticated young woman; her primary wish fulfilled, which also goes in accordance to her mother’s and adoptive uncle’s dreams: she meets and marries a nice professional young man and together they seek greener pastures in America when Mehrdad is recognised for his skills in his field of research.

It has been years since she and Homa had been close friends and eventually they lose touch. Homa is released from prison and meets a gentle young man Abdol, and while they struggle financially, Homa gives birth to a young girl but you’ll have to read the book to find out who the father is as that would be a spoiler and, what happens to Abdol.

The story comes full circle when Homa sends her daughter Bahar to the United States to get away from the repressive regime in Iran and for the childless Mehrdad and Ellie, she is taken in as virtually their own child.

Homa struggles under the new Iranian regime but as you’ll find out, the story comes full circle when there is a reunion in America of deeply significant and emotionally moving proportions.

I cannot recommend this book enough. As I said earlier, it is beautifully and descriptively written and the story comes straight from the author’s heart. As she writes in the author’s note at the end: “Writing about Iranian women has been a central theme of my life. I come from a line of strong, very vocal, and opinionated Iranian women who in some instances broke new ground… and in all cases experienced a hard-line government eradicate almost overnight rights for which women had fought for decades”.

Do read!