In This Edition of
The BookBrowse Review
The BookBrowse Review
Published December 4, 2024
ISSN: 1930-0018
The BookBrowse Review
Published December 4, 2024
ISSN: 1930-0018
Contents
Highlighting indicates debut books
Discussions are open to all members to read and post. Click to view the books currently being discussed.
Literary Fiction
Historical Fiction
Essays
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Mysteries
Thrillers
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Biography/Memoir
History, Current Affairs and Religion
True Crime
Travel & Adventure
Literary Fiction
Historical Fiction
Mysteries
Thrillers
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Graphic Novels
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Science, Health and the Environment
| BookBrowse: | |
| Critics: | |
| Readers: |
From the nationally bestselling author of the "powerful, heartbreaking" (Shelf Awareness) The Stationery Shop, a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.
In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother's endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.
Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa's warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming "lion women."
But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls' high school in Iran, Ellie's memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie's privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.
Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.
Excerpted from The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali. Copyright © 2024 by Marjan Kamali. Excerpted by permission of Gallery Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Gallery Books. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
Seven-year-old Ellie, living in Tehran in the 1950s, has just lost her father. She and her single mother are forced to leave their lavish life behind and move to a tiny home downtown. Grieving her father and struggling to cope with the outbursts of her proud and volatile mother, Ellie fantasizes about the best friend she will meet when she starts school: a polite, sweet girl with whom she can share her secrets. The wild, brash Homa is hardly who she has in mind, but after a rocky start, the girls become inseparable despite the protests of Ellie's mother, who fears that Homa, with her working-class background and communist father, will be a bad influence on Ellie.
When Ellie's mother remarries and relocates the family back uptown, regaining their former social status, Ellie and Homa lose touch. Later, Homa transfers to Ellie's high school, and Ellie, now rich and popular, is mortified when Homa makes no effort to fit in with their classmates as she has. Nevertheless, Homa soon charms her way back into Ellie's life. As the two girls grow up together, Ellie finds that she admires her friend's fearlessness and political activism, but while Homa gets involved with a communist organization at university, all Ellie can do is think about her engagement and dream about being a wife and a mother. Ellie's naivety ends up having dire consequences when an error in judgment puts Homa's life in danger, altering the course of both girls' lives.
Set during a particularly turbulent period of Iranian history, The Lion Women of Tehran highlights the growing conflict between those like Ellie's mother who support the royal family, and those like Homa's father who advocate for Mohammad Reza Shah's deposition. But when the Shah is overthrown by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the religious extremists who take power plunge the entire country into a period of darkness that is only exacerbated by the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.
Author Marjan Kamali distills Iran's complex contemporary history into a compelling narrative that centers on the intertwined lives of the two main characters. In emphasizing the contrast in the girls' upbringings, Kamali presents the reader with a multifaceted picture of Iran, and as personal and political conflicts build, she underscores how the differences between Ellie and Homa are not nearly as significant as their similarities as women living and surviving in a systemically misogynistic society.
There are a few moments where the novel could have used sharper editing—dialogue about narcissism and emotional abuse feels anachronistically articulate for the 1980s; a final confrontation between Ellie and Homa is brought on by an event whose melodrama feels silly. The last few chapters almost abandon the narrative in favor of acting as a manifesto for women's rights in Iran—and while the author's passion for this important subject shines through, it feels a little shoehorned in rather than serving as a logical culmination of Ellie and Homa's story.
But on the whole, this is a gripping, eye-opening narrative about a fascinating period of Iranian history, that tells the story of two complicated, bright young women who are committed to fighting for each other through numerous personal challenges and moments of political upheaval.
Reviewed by Rachel Hullett
Adrienne Brodeur, New York Times bestselling author of Little Monsters
Sadeqa Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of The House of Eve
Susan Elizabeth Phillips, New York Times bestselling author
Rated 4 out of 5
by Jill
A Compelling Read
THE LION WOMEN OF TEHRAN by Marjan Kamali
4.5 stars
Narration by Mozhan Navabi and Nikki Massoud was very well done. Mozhan Navabi is a favorite narrator of mine.
Ellie and Homa, two young girls growing up in Tehran meet at school in early 1950s. Ellie, who is descended from Persian royalty, lives in grand comfort until the death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Ellie and Homa do everything together and become the closest of friends and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.” Things change for the girls when Ellie and her mother are able to return to their previous bourgeois life. Ellie meets new friends and soon Homa begins to fade. Years later Homa reappears in Ellie’s life. As they come of age together during a time of political upheaval that is building in Iran, they’ll learn that their lives will forever be changed by the course of their friendship. Though the story is Ellie’s, Homa is the real star in this.
This is a compelling and beautifully crafted historical read about the power and complexities of deep friendship and resilience during a time of political unrest. With love, ambition, loyalty, jealousy, betrayal and forgiveness, the complex nature of mother-daughter relationships, family shame and secrets.
“Lionesses. Us. Can’t you just see it Ellie? Someday, you and me — we’ll do great things. We’ll live life for ourselves. And we will help others. We are cubs now, maybe. But we will grow to be lionesses. Strong women who will make things happen.”
In the southwest of Iran lies a city called Abadan, over five hundred miles from the country's capital of Tehran, with a population of a little over 200,000. Despite its relatively quiet presence, it played a crucial role in sparking the Iranian Revolution of 1979. On August 19, 1978, Cinema Rex, a movie theater located in a working-class district of the city, was burned down with the doors locked from the outside during a screening of The Deer (Gavaznha), resulting in the deaths of around 400 civilians. To understand the context of this terrorist attack and those responsible, we have to look at the preceding years in the Iranian government, and the social unrest that resulted from them.
In 1953, the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh was overthrown by the Iranian army, backed by the US and the UK. (Mosaddegh had recently broken off negotiations with the UK over Iran's oil supply in an effort to nationalize the country's oil industry—the UK, fearing a loss of profits, appealed to the US for help, at which time President Roosevelt staged a plot to oust Mosaddegh.) This successful coup resulted in a strengthening of power for the country's Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
In the 1960s, the Shah implemented a series of reforms called the White Revolution, which endeavored to improve numerous industries in Iran. The White Revolution drew criticisms both from those who believed the reforms were not moving fast enough and those who resented the country's Westernization. The Shah formed a secret police force, called SAVAK, which suppressed dissent and made it impossible to speak publicly against the government.
When Cinema Rex was burned down in 1978, chaos ensued. The government was quick to blame its opposition, and opposition groups were quick to blame the Shah, claiming the attack was staged by SAVAK to frame them. The Abadan police detained ten opposition members, and eventually five of them confessed to responsibility for the fire.
However, the opposition continued to accuse government forces of starting the fire, and the Cinema Rex attack contributed to cementing a strong anti-Shah sentiment among the people of Iran. In this period of mistrust and disinformation, religious extremist Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini capitalized on the Cinema Rex fire, claiming that the victims were martyrs who "watered the roots of the tree of Islam with their blood." Khomeini would go on to seize power after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 resulted in the deposition of the Shah. His theocratic reign was a notorious one, which stripped Iranian citizens of their rights and alienated non-Muslim Iranians.
The Cinema Rex attack, depicted in Marjan Kamali's novel The Lion Women of Tehran, was at the time the deadliest terrorist attack in modern history, and remains one of deadliest. The exact death toll is disputed, but the number of victims is estimated to have been as high as 470.
The inside of the Cinema Rex after the fire (1978), via Wikimedia Commons
Filed under People, Eras & Events
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
