Review: The Lion Women of Tehran

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’d been meaning to read this one for a while, but it somehow slipped my notice until I happened to find it on a library shelf in Portland. If I’d read it in 2024 when it was first published, it would’ve absolutely topped my list of best books of the year. This beautiful and powerful historical novel spans decades in Iran and America, first in the time of the Shah, then the Ayatollah. I’ve long been fascinated with the cultural riches of Iran (the artwork! The architecture! The religions! [Yes, plural.] and the food!!), and it’s beyond shameful that the country has been in the grips of authoritarian evil for as long as it has. Elaheh (aka Ellie) and Homa start as such inseparable friends, until family and political forces drive them apart (dear God is Ellie’s mom an insufferable witch, although she definitely becomes more sympathetic over time.)

As corrupt as the Shah was, the opposition to him has proven much worse in many ways, not only from the sinister Islamofascism of the Ayatollah (and on the subject of him, how did I not know he’d been waiting in Paris for his devotees to succeed in their revolution? Hamas leaders clearly got some inspiration from him), but also the communist left who united with these ideological opposites only because they equally hated the Shah and his secret police (just like how Western tankie types have failed our democracy again and again in the vain hopes of Trump triggering their own revolution.)

History rhymes, after all.

Knowing now how the Ayatollah’s regime has persisted for decades makes this book even more heartbreaking. But no evil lasts forever, and in the last few years, the Islamic Republic has shown ever more cracks. By the time the novel ends, we see how Ellie and Homa have served their homeland and their culture in many ways, including connections to real life protests in Iran in the last few years.

I want my country rid of its own strain of (mercifully less competent) fascism immediately, but this novel reminds us all that in order to restore democracy, the fight is lifelong. And beyond.

View all my reviews