4.7
-
746 ratings
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.
Written with Marjan Kamali’s signature “evocative, devastating, and hauntingly beautiful” (Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light) prose, The Lion Women of Tehran is a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young, and the way love and courage transforms our lives.
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ISBN-10
1398534757
ISBN-13
978-1398534759
Print length
333 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Gallery Books
Publication date
July 01, 2024
Dimensions
7.8 x 5.12 x 0.91 inches
Item weight
8.5 ounces
That’s how losses of rights build. They start small. And then soon, the rights are stripped in droves.
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Shir zan. 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 make things happen.
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Events that seem to appear in the present from out of nowhere in actuality have a long history behind them.
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ASIN :
B0CL5GS8SK
File size :
2903 KB
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Enabled
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Supported
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Enabled
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"Elegant...A tender, beautifully written examination of two women—and their choices—over more than 30 years."—Oprah Daily
“Riveting...Reminiscent of The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend, The Lion Women of Tehran is a mesmerizing tale featuring endearing characters who will linger in readers’ hearts.” —BookPage
“Kamali tells a moving story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and how a country’s transformation, in turn, transforms the lives of two unforgettable women. Simultaneously heartbreaking and life affirming, it’s a book that you won’t be able to put down until you’ve read every word.” —Adrienne Brodeur, New York Times bestselling author of Little Monsters
"With this masterful, heart-centered novel, Marjan Kamali has crafted a deeply honest look at the true meaning of friendship. Through Homa and Ellie we see the nuances of a perfectly imperfect love that withstands class differences, personal trauma, jealousy, war, and revolution. Their souls are forever intertwined and as a reader it is an honor to bear witness. This book made me incredibly proud to be an Iranian woman—a Lion Woman too." —Shideh Etaat, author of Rana Joon and the One and Only Now
"Marjan Kamali is at it again, this time bringing us a story of friendship and love set against the tumult and terror of the Iranian Revolution. The Lion Women of Tehran is a novel about two girls, who grow up wanting very different things but are united by their affection for each other and their shared desire for a more egalitarian Iran. Kamali is a gifted storyteller at the height of her powers, who manages to connect the country’s complicated history with its present and sing the praises of Iranian women who, even today, are fighting for the most basic of freedoms. If you liked The Stationery Shop, you’ll love The Lion Women of Tehran." —Rachel Beanland, author of Florence Adler Swims Forever and The House is On Fire
"In The Lion Women of Tehran, Marjan Kamali brings to life the beauty and tragedy of Iran in the 1960s. From the delicious scent of spices simmering, to the colors of the bazaar, to the snowflakes landing on a certain character’s hair, this story came brilliantly alive to me from the very first page. Courage, friendship, loyalty, hardship, love—this novel has everything." —Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes
"Kamali's storytelling is both evocative and hauntingly beautiful, creating a vivid portrayal of the characters' lives and the cultural tapestry of Tehran. The Lion Women of Tehran is not merely a novel; it is a sweeping exploration of the enduring influence of early connections, the resilience of the human spirit, and the transformative power of love and courage in the face of political upheaval. This novel is a testament to Kamali's storytelling prowess and her ability to create a deeply moving and thought-provoking narrative. I loved this book!" —Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee
"A moving tale of friendship, betrayal, and forgiveness, unfolding into a deep and powerful exploration of feminist protest in Iran. The contrast between Ellie and Homa’s voices is a narrative all of its own, and Homa deserves a place as one of the true heroines of literature.” —Erica Bauermeister, New York Times bestselling author of No Two Persons
"An evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism." —People
"More than a tale of friendship or a coming-of-age story, it’s a beautifully crafted and subtle exploration of love, family, friendship, ambition, betrayal and redemption in a socio-political powder keg...This finely written novel emphasizes the human experience in the face of turmoil.” —Bookreporter
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Part One
ONE
December 1981
I stood on the lacquered floor—a small woman in black with a rectangular name badge on my chest. My coiffed, contented look was calculated so I’d appear not just satisfied but quietly superior. In America, I’d learned the secret to being a successful salesperson was to act like one of the elite, as if spritzing perfume on customers’ blue-veined wrists were doing them a favor.
A sea of haughty New Yorkers swerved to avoid my spray. Thank God for the more down-to-earth women—the cooks and bakers coming up to the first floor from the basement home goods section—they were too polite to reject the fragrant droplets I offered. Orange, lily, jasmine, and rose notes nestled in the lines of my palms and the fibers of my clothes.
“Look at you, Ellie! Soon you’ll take over this whole brand. I better watch my back!” My friend and coworker Angela, returning from her cigarette break, sidled up and whispered in my ear. The scent of her Hubba Bubba gum couldn’t hide the smoke on her breath.
I shivered at the reek of tobacco. The bitter, sour notes would forever remind me of one long-ago night in Iran. The night when an act of betrayal changed the entire course of my friendship with Homa and both of our lives.
From the moment I’d read Homa’s letter last night, I’d been a wreck.
I batted away Angela’s compliments, said I wasn’t doing all that well, really, and that I had a headache because I hadn’t eaten all day.
“I just might faint,” I added with a touch of melodrama.
It was a relief when Angela was whisked away by a needy customer.
My mother always said the envy of others invites the evil eye to cast doom on us. She’d often told me that being perceived as too competent, happy, or successful could summon misfortune. I knew belief in the powers of other people’s jealousy and the jinxing of an evil eye needed to be cast off. But at the age of thirty-eight, in the middle of that massive Manhattan department store, I was still unwittingly beholden to superstition.
The truth of who I was could not be escaped. Nor could the flaw I had spent years trying to quash and erase.
The guilty one had always been me.
Earlier that morning, in our apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, my husband, Mehrdad, had tried to comfort me with breakfast. He prepared toast with feta cheese and cherry jam. He brewed bergamot tea. But I couldn’t eat or drink. The jam was made from Homa’s recipe. The bergamot tea in the white teapot adorned with two pink roses reminded me of her. With the arrival of her letter, her absence dominated my life all over again.
When I had first seen the red-and-blue-bordered airmail envelope, I’d assumed it was from Mother and would contain the usual mix of laments and updates about the dangerous political situation in Iran. I knew those letters were probably opened and read by regime forces, but my mother often didn’t care and wrote bluntly: Aren’t you lucky, Ellie? You left and escaped the violent demonstrations and deafening riots. You skipped our country’s slide back into medieval times. Women have lost decades, no, centuries, of rights in this country. I’m glad you’re sitting comfortably with your professor husband in America. Thank goodness you got out!
But when I pulled the onionskin paper from the envelope and unfolded it, my heart almost stopped. For there on the page was the unmistakable curlicue handwriting of my old friend, Homa.
As girls, we’d sat on the same elementary school bench in downtown Tehran. Together we scratched out hopscotch grids in our neighborhood alley and raced to school with satchels bouncing against our hips. With Homa, I had zigzagged through the mazes of the Grand Bazaar and shared ice cream sandwiches and dreams for the kind of women we’d become. In her stone kitchen, I learned to cook. With her hand in mine, I jumped over the largest bonfires. When we’d hiked up Alborz Mountain and seen Tehran laid out beneath us, it felt like the world could be entirely ours.
Until one moment of striking carelessness ruined it all.
For the past seventeen years, we had been ghaar—purposefully estranged—with no contact save one unplanned encounter. Now her letter was in my hands. How did she know where to find me? She must have gotten my address from Mother. One page of Homa’s letter was filled with questions about my life in America. And another was about her situation in Iran. Her health was good (pressure in the sinuses but nothing more), the weather (cold and yet delicious in the mountains—remember the teahouse we went to?) was fitting for the season, her job as a teacher kept her busy. But her mind was not at ease (You wouldn’t recognize this country, Ellie. I don’t know where we went wrong). At the bottom was a sentence about Bahar, her daughter, and how she loved to sing. She closed the letter with Can you call me, Ellie? Please. My number is 272963. I need to speak to you. It’s urgent.
After I told Mehrdad about the letter, he held me close and said gently, “It’s good she’s reached out. You were the best of friends. Time to air it all out, Ellie. Speak to her.”
How I wish it were so simple.
I couldn’t blame Homa for cutting contact. But now she had flown back into my life all innocence and zest, creating a crater of questions with her sign-off. It’s urgent.
At the end of my shift, I removed my name pin, put it in the counter drawer, then pulled on my warm camel coat and striped leg warmers.
As I rushed outside toward the subway station, the cold December air carried the scent of roasted nuts from food carts and diesel fumes from hissing city buses. Large-bellied, tired-looking men dressed as Santa Claus rang bells, pointing to their kettle buckets and shouting, “Merry Christmas!” Gold and silver tinsel framed the insides of shop windows and trees with shiny ornaments winked behind glass displays. There was a chill in the air that made my breath float in visible rings.
The words in Homa’s letter ran through my head. Suddenly a taxi swerved far too close to me and honked loudly. My heart fell as I remembered another time a car had almost hit me. But this time, the only damage done was sludgy puddle water soaking through my leg warmers.
A neon pizza sign flashed red and yellow close to the subway entrance. I got giddy at the thought of a slice.
Since arriving in New York almost four and a half years ago, I’d strolled through Central Park, visited museums filled with global art, and dined in a few fancy restaurants. But no cultural experience topped eating a salty, cheesy, hot slice of New York pizza. Every pizzeria seemed to be in on the secret recipe for tangy tomato sauce and a perfectly foldable crust.
I looked at my wristwatch. No point in getting into the train hungry and drained of energy. I slipped into the pizza place and waited in line to order. After paying my seventy-five cents, I walked out with a cheese slice snug in a triangular cardboard box. I opened the box to take my first bite.
I heard her before I saw her. She moaned rhythmically as though in pain. Under the dim light of the streetlamp near the subway station, I made her out: an old woman huddled against the lamppost, two plastic bags on her feet, a flowered headscarf barely covering her hair. In between moans she asked unresponsive passersby in a weak voice on mechanical repeat: “Madam, can you spare a dime? Mister, can you spare a nickel?”
I wanted to get to my train. Get home. I needed to think, to decide whether I would call my old friend. But how could I ignore this woman? I went to her and stooped down. She smiled, and I was surprised to see straight and perfect teeth. The old woman held my gaze. Her eyes were watery and opaque-looking. She shrugged slightly. In that small movement, I detected a silent acknowledgment of the randomness of the wheel of fortune.
I handed her my triangular cardboard box—the pizza in it still hot and untouched. From my bag, I found the kiss-lock purse Mother had given me as a child in Iran, opened it, and took out all the coins and a few scrunched-up bills. American money still appeared strange to me: so green and thick compared to our bills back home. The lady took the pizza, coins, and bills I offered with a look of bewilderment.
I got up and walked away. As I descended the subway station steps, I turned around only once.
She was eating the pizza quickly—her face an expression of complete relief.
When the train rushed into the tunnel and screeched to a stop, we all jostled and hustled to get inside. The crowded subway car smelled of urine and damp wool. Thankfully, I got a seat. Wedged between strangers, I was grateful for the anonymity. Not one person in that dirty, busy, fascinating, energetic, depressing, alluring city knew about my past or the guilt and regret that swallowed me whole.
The train lurched and blasted forward. Someone by the door sneezed and a gentleman in a baseball cap hummed a tune that was strangely cheerful.
I closed my eyes. I remembered all of it—every single bit. Those days of connection and chaos that had shaped our friendship could never be forgotten.
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Marjan Kamali
Marjan Kamali is the award-winning author of The Stationery Shop (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster), a national bestseller, and Together Tea (EccoBooks/HarperCollins), a Massachusetts Book Award finalist. She is a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. Kamali’s novels are published in translation in more than 20 languages and The Stationery Shop was awarded the Prix Attitude in France. Her essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Literary Hub, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley, an MBA from Columbia University, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from New York University. Born in Turkey to Iranian parents, Kamali spent her childhood in Turkey, Iran, Germany, Kenya, and the U.S.
Visit the author at marjankamali.com, on instagram at @marjankamali7, on facebook at www.facebook.com/MarjanKamaliAuthor or on twitter at @MarjanKamali.
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Customer reviews
4.7 out of 5
746 global ratings
Mom to 2 Boys
5
Story of Culture, Love and Feiendship
Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2024
Verified Purchase
Amazing story of two girls whose lives intersect at age 7 by chance. They have different dreams and expectations but their lives intertwine. They have an enduring friendship fraught with hardship due to the political landscape of 1950-1980s Iran. They support and defend one another throughout their lives.
It is a beautiful story that will be with me .
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6 people found this helpful
Breide Smyth
5
Cross cultural read,
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2024
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I really enjoyed this book. Loved,the pace, humour, descriptions and emotions etc. It was,interesting to see the Iranian words with english translations. Insightful.
Sharon Weingarten
5
Mad Friendship, Enlightening History
Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2024
Verified Purchase
Many books feature friendships that span a lifetime, as this book does. But what makes this so special is that it sheds light on a pivotal time in Iran’s history, one that expanded women’s rights, only to usurp them again. It taught me the difference between Persian and Arabic, and the traditional foods and culture of Iran. It taught me the lengths that brave women were willing to go to in the fight for equality and freedom to just live their lives and make their own choices. It reminded me of the beautiful, complex, sometimes painful and always redemptive relationships that women share as we move through life. This is a wonderful book, and I highly recommend that you share it with your closest friends!
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2 people found this helpful
Alexandra Grabbe
5
What an awesome read!
Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2024
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I loved The Lion Women of Tehran. I loved the novel’s main characters. I loved learning the history of the oppression of Iranian women through Ellie and Homa’s story. The two girls become friends in childhood. Their friendship endures despite trials and tribulations. On International Women’s Day in 1979, readers are right there with Homa as men with clubs enter the crowd of protesters. Tens of thousands of women marching. This novel thrilled me and enlightened me and made me want to waste no time in trying Persian food because of the frequent references to dishes I had never heard of, let alone tasted. I felt the anguish of Iranian women when the current regime passed a law making the hijab mandatory. When Homa marches for women’s rights, readers are right there by her side, clenched fists in the air. We root for Homa and Ellie across 75 years. So much happens in this novel, but it’s a page-turner. No wonder Oprah recommended it. I appreciated Marjan Kamali’s Author’s Note that she is neither a scholar nor a historian. That may be true, but Kamali succeeds in making us care about Iran and its courageous women. She adds timeliness to the story with reference to Mahsa Amini, the Kurd who was murdered for having shown a bit of hair. Run, don’t walk, to your favorite local independent bookstore and get your hands on this novel. It is excellent.
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10 people found this helpful
Helga O'Dell
5
Women and Lions
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2024
Verified Purchase
I loved and enjoyed this book so much. Two little girls, forever loyal friends. What they experience in their lives and enjoy as well as endure. Exciting and interesting as well as emotional from beginning to end. For me a book hard to put down, one I will never forget. Totally a must read. Get to know the Lion Women.
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