Bookwild - Marjan Kamali's The Lion Women of Tehran: Friendship, Feminism and Religious Fundamentalism

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

This week, I talk with Marjan Kamali about her beautiful novel about friendship, The Lion Women of Tehran.  We dive into how the book covers the nature of childhood friendships, the vast spectrum of being a Lion Woman, and the jarring aftermath of women losing their rights almost overnight to religious fundamentalists in Iran.The Lion Women of Tehran SynopsisIn 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. Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

Just like with lying women or feminism in general, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that that means as a woman you have to be X. And I just don't think that's true. I find women's lives to be slightly more interesting than men's lives. I just feel women carry the burden of running not just the whole. and the family, but in many ways, like running the lives of those around them. And in my own experience, because most of my relatives are Iranian women, there's this nuance that I feel we miss when we talk about Iranian women. This week I got to talk with Marjan Kamali about her newest novel, The Lion Women of Tehran. It is this decade-spanning, beautiful look at a friendship that starts in child.

childhood and how it extends into adulthood. It covers the wide definition of feminism and how two very different women with two very different lives who make very different choices are both lying women in their own right. So here's what it's about. 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 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-shadowed, betrayal will have enormous consequences. I was so attached to both of these characters, especially Homa. I will love Homa for the rest of my life. I will remember Homa for the rest of my life. But what I loved so much was that I could connect with parts of both Ellie and Homa, and they're very complicated stories as they grew up. The book tells the story of the jarring transition into religious fundamentalism in Iran and how women's rights were taken away almost overnight. And it feels like a very timely story to be paying attention to right now. I can't wait for

you guys to hear from Marjan, so let's get into it. So I'm so excited to talk about the lion women of Tehran, but I did want to get to know you a little bit first. So when did you know you wanted to be an author or what was your first moment where you were like, I'm going to write you. write a book. Oh, you know, I grew up reading a lot. I was always reading. And back then, we used to call that being a bookworm, except the things that people said are so similar to what we now say to kids when they're on their phone.

Like, oh, pay attention. Be present with us. Don't hunch you. Going to ruin your eyesight, that whole thing. I always wrote, I wrote short stories and plays in elementary school poems. It wasn't until high school that I realized I actually wanted to be a writer. And a lot of that had to do with teachers who encouraged me. Like in middle school and high school, I just remember my English teachers so well and their encouragement.

And so I think the idea of writing as a career began to form when I was in high school. That's really cool. that you like felt kind of confident in it that early on. And you actually, I saw you actually have an MFA and an MBA. So obviously you kind of continued with school and all of that. How do those affect how you write? It was always a question of following my heart versus following what society deemed was correct. So I did end up majoring in English lit.

in my undergrad years and that was in and of itself like a coup because, you know, as the child of immigrants, it was expected that maybe I would go into things like medicine or engineering or law, these more traditional professions. But getting the MBA was my way of compromising and doing something quote unquote professional so that society would. approve of my professional status. An English undergrad degree wasn't helping me very much with getting great jobs. But I deep down desperately wanted to be a writer. So at the same time, I got the MFA.

And I led a double life. I was doing one uptown during the day and the other downtown in the evening in New York. Yeah. I was going uptown to Columbia with all my Republican friends. in the daytime and then doing like a switcheroo and going downtown to NYU with all my liberal artsy fartsy friends in the evening yeah yeah and it was so cool you did it the same time it was the same time it was the same time and it was like straddling these two very different worlds but one was my head and the other was my heart and then eventually after a very zigzagged

zigzaggy, zigzaggy trajectory, I got to become a full-time writer. It took a while. Yeah. I think it always does, for most people, I would assume it takes a little bit to consider it your full-time thing. How did your writing process develop? So do you outline or do you just kind of start writing with some characters in mind? I don't outline, especially for the first draft. So the first draft is very much me figuring out this story. And for all three novels, when I've started the first draft, I don't know the plot at all. I just know the characters. Yeah.

So I started the characters and then my first draft is a way for me to figure out the beginning, the middle, and the end in some way, shape, or form. once I have that first draft, then I take a break. But when I go back to revise, it's a complete re-gutting and it's very intentional and very meticulous. So I would say in the first draft, I'm a complete pancer. But then in the ensuing drafts, I do outline a bit and I do plan very meticulously. Yeah, that's cool. You just kind of follow what you're kind of feeling with the. characters at first and then kind of think about plot second basically.

Absolutely. And that's what I love about it because by not planning that first draft, I'm surprised every day. Yeah. And that's a really, really exciting feeling to, to be writing and to suddenly realize that, oh, she died on me. I didn't expect that. You know, it's a thrill. It's a thrill. Yeah. I know. I'm sure it is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. So you write historical fiction.

Is there something that draws you to that genre? You know, I didn't plan on writing historical fiction. I sort of fell into it because my first book, Together Tea, there were dual timelines. There was a timeline that happened in the 70s and a timeline that happened in the mid-90s. And when that book came out, it was classified as historical fiction,

and it came out in 2013. And I was shocked because I didn't think the 70s was considered history, to be honest, at that time. And I really didn't think the 90s were. But then, you know, my editorial assistant, who was 24 years old, said, of course the 70s are history. And because I'd been a child then,

I kind of just didn't assume that would be historical fiction. And then I realized that because I love telling the tale of the U.S. and Iran, like for me, it's impossible to write about one without the other. And I'm most interested in the 20th century, particularly the mid-20th century. The two ensuing novels, the stationary shop and the line women of Tehran are both set in the mid-20th century and then there's also like a more present day timeline so this sort of happened yeah that's cool that's what when i started asking people what drew them to certain genres it did it surprises me how many people actually say like they're not even thinking in genre when they start writing and then it just happens to be like labeled that way after they write it so it's

that's kind of cool to think about yeah that's cool the only one yeah Yeah. With this book, with the Lion Women of Tehran, what was your, it sounds like you started with characters, but what was the kind of character inspiration then at the beginning of it? You know, the inspiration was I had actually started a different book and I was more than 100 pages in. And that book was about the suburban women whose firstborn children are applying to college. I had the characters. I had the children. I had the schools. And they would, for fun, go to a cafe named Miss Ellie's Cafe to talk. And then during lockdown, during the pandemic, I was scrolling Instagram and I came across these posts from a friend of mine who was my friend,

not just on Instagram, but once upon a time we had been best friends in Iran in elementary school. and just seeing her again, seeing her photos, it bubbled up inside of me such a visceral reaction, like almost a physical reaction where I could feel again the texture of our friendship. I could remember so clearly being with her, hanging out with her, playing together, doing homework together, meeting her mom for the first time. and all these just almost joyful memories of a childhood friendship. And I kept reflecting on the very different directions our lives had taken because by then in 2020, I was an author telling stories in America

and she was working for a human rights organization in Iran. And I realized these friendships we make when we're young shape us so deeply. and the influence lasts, you know, even the friendship doesn't have to last, but the influence lasts. So I knew that's really what I wanted to write about. So I put away those 100 plus pages that I'd already started. The only thing is I plucked out, a cafe owner. I was more interested in her. And that's who became Ellie.

And then it became her story of her friendship. That was really cool. I know you grew up in Tehran as well. What was your life like as a kid there? Well, actually, I didn't really grow up there. I did live there, but I only live there between the ages of two and five. And then again, nine to ten and a half. Yeah, a lot of people assume I grew up there, which I take as a compliment,

because it means maybe I'm conjuring up the country and the city in a way that's realistic. But now you know my time there was so short, and especially those early years, but the later leg was a very pivotal time in Iran's history because it was right after the revolution and during the start of the Iran-Iraq war. So I was there for that first year and a half of that war. and it was a really surreal time to be there because when I first went back when I was nine, the laws hadn't changed enough yet for women. So there was no dress code. Things were in flux. They were a little bit like they already had been for decades.

But during the time that I was there, everything quickly changed. And so a dress code became mandated. and so many of the laws changed, especially regarding women. And then the war began, which was a completely difficult experience. So I feel like my time there, though, short was filled with a whole bunch of different Iran's because it rapidly. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. What I saw in the press kit that they sent over,

that you are inspired by the women in your life for what in the books that you write. What is like, what is the inspiration that you get from those women? So personally, and this is just my own personal experience, I find women's lives to be slightly more interesting than men's lives. Yes. I just feel women carry the burden of, running not just the home and the family, but in many ways, like running the lives of those around them. Whereas in many cases, men go to work and they run their company or they do their job.

But it doesn't feel as many faceted as multifaceted. And in my own experience, because most of my relatives are Iranian women, there's the this nuance that I feel we miss when we talk about Iranian women. In the media, women from Iran are often depicted as oppressed and therefore submissive and somewhat meek. But I have not met one meek Iranian women. I just don't know them. They don't exist in my world.

In my world, they're very opinion. They're very, very strong. They have to be. They're very resilient and resourceful and fierce. And so I just find them so interesting. And I feel like I could tell their stories till the day I die and not run out of interesting things to write about. And in all three of my novels, I've centered the women.

And in the line, women of Tehran, obviously, the main two characters are Ellie and Homa, two very different women, but their friendship unites them through decades. Yeah, that's a really interesting point because we all kind of know at this point that it is really common for women to, especially when they're children and like you are the head of the family, there is just so much more going on relationally and even probably. I think there are more men who are a little more emotionally aware lately, but there is a lot more typically emotional awareness with women too. So that's a really good point that there's kind of

more to like mine from women for story, basically. That's, I love that. Yeah. There's a lot more to mind also because there's an outward facing woman and then and then what's going on behind the scenes in many cases. Yeah, totally. Another thing I saw in the press kit was this amazing quote from one of your writing professors that I've actually mentioned on this podcast multiple times now. But it was a professor named E.L. Doctoro. Is that how I pronounce it? Yes. Yes. Awesome. Yeah. And the quote is the historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like. And I like read that before. I read the book and I was like, that is so powerful. And then when I was reading your book, I was like, that really is what I'm experiencing as I read it. So how did you incorporate, like,

showing the history of Iran while also, like, really being grounded in what it felt like to live through that time? Yeah, I'm so much more interested in what things felt like than in just learning about what happened. So his quote really guided me. And when I was writing the line, women of Tehran, the backdrop of this book is made up of many true political events. You have, you know, in the 50s, in 1953, there's a coup d'etat. And then there's this expanding women's rights movement. And in the 60s, many changes are made. Women get more rights. In the 70s, the 70s that continues, but there's other political oppression occurring at the same time. And then there's the revolution of 79. So all of that is something somebody could read in maybe

five minutes by reading a timeline on the internet. But for me, what's interesting is how these geopolitical events change people's lives and affect them on such a visceral level. So through Ellie and Homa, I'm less interested, honestly, in what happened politically, what happened historically. I'm interested in their friendship and I'm interested in their characters and I'm interested in their nature. I'm interested in who is Homa as a person? Well, she's audacious, she's an idealist, she's very authentic, she's deeply, deeply, um, intent on making the world a better place. And if you are that person in a place where these circumstances are occurring, how does that constrain you? How does that affect you? And you know,

having read the book that the trajectory of her life is altered by these events. And with Ellie, the other friend, the main friend you could argue, you know, she's a little insecure. She is a jealous person. She wants to do good. She wants to be good, but she's very tempted by status and by social standing. She has to deal with a narcissistic mother. She has her own stuff going on. And how do you self-actualize as a woman when you have that nature? And in addition, all these circumstances geopolitically around you? Yeah. I really loved, you're kind of touching on it already.

There's a big contrast between how Ellie and Homa choose to live their lives and the decisions they make over the whole span of their lives. And I loved that that to me felt like an example of like, lion women didn't have to just mean one thing. And you don't have to just be one way to still be strong. strong and still do things like your way. And so Homa is like very blatantly going against the regime with her political activism. And Ellie still, though, is like trying to be more than like her mother, what her mother wants for her too. So she's still basically choosing her own path in another way. So how did you, I'm sorry, my dog just appeared and barked at me, how did you approach like creating them very separately, but also still as lion women?

Yeah, I love that you said that because that was definitely part of my intention. So the term lion women translates literally from the Persian phrase, Shear Zan, and Shear means lion and Zan means woman. And this is just a, phrase that's used to refer to really strong, fierce, courageous women. And it's very empowering. But I think just like with lion women or feminism in general, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that that means as a woman, you have to be X. And I just don't think that's true. So you are right that Ellie and Homa become lion women, each and their own. way. Like Homa ends up being a political activist, a strong women's rights leader. She is that person. That's who she is and she always will be. But Ellie, by living her life, by choosing to be a wife and she wants to be a mother and ends up being a mother in a very different way than she had first imagined.

And that too is living her own version of being a lion woman. And I feel like the ordinary lives that women lead are just as courageous as the extraordinary lives that sort of make the news. Yeah. That's a really good point. Because it's so, and Ellie kind of struggles with it a little bit. It's like being around a friend who feels very, like, virtuous and very, very. like married to her ideals and like what she wants from the world can be intimidating if that's not how you feel necessarily. And I think she even struggles a little bit with like, am I as good

of a person as her? But it's, they're just both individual people who, like, I love the way you said that, especially like with feminism. It's so easy for people to be like, well, if you're still a stay at home mom that's not feminist but like what's feminist is like the ability to choose what who you want to be and like not be told who you have to be so i'd love that perspective exactly the minute you make it a box that you have to check off then you've lost your agency and yes a feminist it's yeah you're prescribing to a woman mm-hmm yeah i i also saw that ellie was in inspired by someone who is close to you. Do you want to talk about that?

Well, she is a representative of a generation of women. So Ellie is not necessarily a particular person that I know I made her up, but she is emblematic of that generation of women in Iran. So is Hohla in some ways. They are born in 1943. I deliberately made them born the year. my mother was born because honestly I wanted to be able to ask my mom questions like what did you have for lunch in high school or how low was the hem of your uniform in elementary school or where did you

guys hang out when you were at university you know those were questions that by having the timeline match my mother's life even though she is not my mother I made her up and I made up the story but I could get those period details correct. But also, Ellie represents the Iranian woman who was the first generation to have her life transformed by an expansion of rights for women. So when Ellie is a child, things are a certain way. But as she goes through her teenagehood, as she goes through her young womanhood, her rights, her rights are expanding because the laws are changing.

And then in her 20s and 30s, her rights are expanding. But then in her late 30s, a revolution happens where almost overnight those rights are taken away. And I wanted to show that. And I wanted to show what it means for a woman like Ellie or Homa to be an Iranian woman knowing that they had more rights. growing up, then their daughters or granddaughters will get to experience. Yeah, that's just, it's so jarring to think about. And I feel like the book really, since you've been following their journey while they did have more rights and felt like they had a lot of agency over their future, then when it goes away so quickly,

you just feel how jar, just is the same word I keep using, but it would be so jarring to, like, have all these ideas about what you were going to do and what direction you wanted your life to go in and it just drastically changing on you. Yes. Jarring is a good word for it. Yeah. Like I just, I, yeah, I just can't even imagine. There's also this really beautiful detail about food throughout the story. And you were kind of mentioning you wanted to be able to ask your mom about what she was eating and stuff. But why was it so important to you to have like all these sensory details around food throughout the story? I feel like food defines who we are. And I feel if we don't mention the food in fiction, we are doing a huge disservice to our characters. Now, I don't mean that,

you know, you need to have recipes throughout or like go into an overload of details. about the food. But especially in the line, women of Tehran, food is part of their relationship because when Ellie and Homa meet, when they're seven years old, on their first play date, they go into Homa's big stone kitchen and they share the food Homa's mom has made. And then as they become friends, they learn to cook together. So in a way, it bonds them. And throughout the book, Food plays a huge role because when Ellie moves to the United States, you know, she misses the food. The food helps connect her to her old culture. And well, no spoilers, but we know later in life, she ends up having food as part of her vocation. And the food, you know, like the big jealousy

scene where Ellie has this almost ridiculous outburst, it's, it happens over. a misunderstanding, but Homa is cooking, her favorite dish. And later when Ellie, well, I don't want to give too many spoilers, but when in America she undertakes a, let's say, helping to raise someone she didn't expect, they bond over food too. So I just think food is a huge part of who we are. I really do. And what you eat can help a reader understand who you are.

Yeah. And it's very communal since we eat together so often. And like that's definitely a through line as well with it. So it does. I do feel like it adds to feeling like you're there as well. The other thing you kind of just mentioned is jealousy is something that gets brought up all throughout. And Ellie's mom is like is very superstitious. and it is very scared of attracting the evil eye by being jealous of other people.

But at the same time, she really wants Ellie to have kind of the life that she's jealous of, too. So how did you balance that contradiction with her mom and just jealousy throughout it? Yeah, jealousy fascinates me because people who are jealous by nature almost can't help it. I mean, it's a trait. I feel it's almost a physical trait. I wanted it to be Ellie's fatal flaw, Ellie's Achilles heel. She becomes aware as a child. We see her become aware of the feeling of jealousy.

And the first time she becomes fully aware of it is when she is with Homa. So on the one hand, she loves this friend, cherishes this friend. admires this friend is envious of this friend. Yeah. And she has to reconcile that within herself, that on the one hand, she adores Homa. On the other hand, she's so jealous of Homa's family, of Homa's nature, of Homa's confidence, magnetism. So I wanted to show Ellie is a jealous person. And in the meantime, she's raised by a mother.

who has this strong belief in the power of the evil eye. And this evil eye superstition is very prevalent in Persian culture. And not just in Persian culture and many cultures. I have learned because of my books, it's very prevalent in Indian culture, Italian culture, Jewish culture, Greek, Turkish. This idea that people can jinx you. with their jealousy. And I feel it's giving a heck of a lot of power to other people because if you believe it,

you believe they have power over you. But when you've been raised with this superstition, it's super hard to shake it off. Even if you may want to and even if your logical brain says, that's ridiculous. Yep. And there's part of you that's like, oh my God, don't jigs me. Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard. Anything that like your parents were teaching you growing up or just the things that you're around in your childhood is so hard to get out of your head because it's just it's been in your head since your head was kind of forming and like becoming a person. So that that totally makes sense. But you also mentioned her relationship with her mom and it's very tense. There's a lot going on in that relationship. She really wants she wants Ellie.

to be a lot of things, but she's also, like, at a certain point in her life, which I think this is in the synopsis, is depressed because her husband died and she really leans into that. And then she also is, like, not happy. Like, she doesn't want Ellie to be friends with Homa because of where Homa is, like, socioeconomically. So how did you approach writing this, like, really difficult mother-daughter dynamic. Yeah, Ellie's mother is a piece of work. And I deliberately wanted to make Ellie's mother a narcissist because I find narcissists to be one of the most frustrating kinds of people. It's so impossible to change their minds about anything. And they believe what they believe, and they can end up causing so much harm. Even to the-

people that they love. And so Ellie is shaped, her personality is shaped by this narcissist that she has for a mom. And yet, maybe some of the people who are narcissists are that way due to their own original wound or their own traumas. And in the beginning, when I was writing the first draft, Ellie's mother was very much this narcissist and remained so. But as I went through edits and to be honest with the good input of my editor, I realized I need to round out this relationship. It can't just stay like this. And so I added a layer and I added scenes where Ellie and her mother have the kinds of talks that we don't always have in real life, but we can have in fiction

where certain things are resolved and certain things are understood if not resolved. Right. So as you know, there's a, there's a narrative Ellie has about her mother, her entire life. But later she realizes there's more to it. And there were things that she didn't know and that helps her understand her mother a little bit better. Yeah, it does. that does happen again like just not trying to talk about spoilers but it does and it is it's often narcissists are hurting the people they love the most it's like actually that's who's getting hurt

more than less or like secondary characters in their lives so it is so tricky navigating all of that the other tension which we kind of talked about is uh homa is really idealistic um And she knows how she wants the world to be. And she really feels like if she can become a judge, she can change everything that needs to be changed. And Ellie kind of feels like she has to almost like bring Homa back to reality sometimes. So how did you approach? Because I loved Homa so much. She is like, I'm just, I'm just never going to forget her.

I loved how fierce she was about what she believed. But how did you approach that. tricky balance again of like it's inspiring to be idealistic but it also kind of is its own version of not being totally realistic absolutely i mean homa as a character and as a person she is nothing but authentic she doesn't have a phony bone in her body and i wanted to depict a character that's just a pure soul i feel like these kinds of pure hearts are few and far between in our world, but they do exist and Homo is one of them. And she's very idealistic, very authentic, very much wanting to better the

world, as I said, and just wanting to make society equitable, which is why when she's young, she's a communist because she thinks that's how it can happen. And then later she realizes maybe not so much. So that idealism is something that can become its own didactic philosophy, right? And I think for Ellie, sometimes Homa's idealism can be very frustrating because Ellie is well aware that she's not like Homa. She doesn't necessarily want to change the world and she doesn't want to take up action. She's not. So some of that idealism gets worn away by life, by the things that happened to Homa, unfortunately. But I tried to show that she is very much changed by certain bad things that happened to her.

But ultimately, she does try to retain her core, herself. Yeah. And she matures. Maybe she's less idealistic, but she does remain an activist. Mm-hmm.

It was a very interesting character to write. Mm-hmm. Because in so many ways, she kind of wrote herself. That's cool. Yeah, when you were saying, like, she doesn't have a phony bone in her body.

That was just like what I loved so much about her. And like Ellie is willing to kind of not be fake, but like play the game socially, which again is not a bad thing. And especially sometimes it's what you do to protect yourself or to be safe. And I feel like I had empathy or sympathy, either one for both of the characters where like, I really, really, really don't like having to do like small talk and the like the things that feel a little fake to me sometimes or like the stuff that you just go along with because you're in a social situation. But at the same time, a lot of Ellie's behavior comes from like self preservation too, which I think is something that all of us can understand too because like at the end of the day you want to survive yourself. So I love both of them, but I did love how Homo would come into situations and like she's not going to lie just because she's like with some other high school girls and wanting to fit in.

Like she just says what she actually thinks. And I just, I always love characters like that. But I did love recognizing parts of myself in both of them as well. I love that. I love that you recognize parts of yourself in both. of them because sometimes people ask me, are you an Ellie or are you a Homa? And the truth is I'm a little bit of both. And I think women are a little bit of both. It's just a question of who comes out when. I also love what you said about Ellie because it's easy to assume that Homa's superior to

Ellie because Homa's much more authentic. Homa doesn't play the game. Homa's an idealist. And she's so diehard, true. But I love what you said. Ellie is playing the game, but it's a self-preservation tactic. Yeah. And sometimes you have to do that.

Yeah. And I'm beginning to think, too, that narcissists, perhaps for many, the narcissism is also a survival tactic. It is. Yeah. Yeah. And it's tough because sometimes when you're in a relationship or interacting with a narcissist in general, it's like, especially if you do any work yourself, you can come to that understanding where you understand that that's probably why they're doing it. But if they can't stop doing it, it doesn't change the fact that you don't know how to interact with them either. So it's so tricky with that dynamic.

It's a very tricky dynamic, yes. Yeah. That's the easiest thing to say about it. Yeah. You kind of talked earlier about how kind of like the texture of your childhood friendship kind of came back to you. And that's kind of what made you like shift directions and write this book compared to what you had started. And in the book really does focus on like how sacred those childhood. friendships can be and the way they can extend into adulthood, even if you haven't seen each other

for a really long time. So what kind of what all were you wanting to get across about your thoughts on friendship and girlhood as well? Yeah, girlhood is something that vanishes. And I really wanted to capture the care-freeness and the joy of girlhood when Ellie and Homa are little, because I feel for a lot of girls, a lot of women, once they reach puberty and as they, you know, become older and go into adolescence, they lose their spark. They dim their light. They learn to button themselves up for a variety of reasons. So to capture Homa and Ellie before any of that happened was joyful for me. And I think, you know, anyone observing little girls is well aware of this kind of spark that you don't always see later in women. So capturing that was really

important to me and for the texture of the friendship I wanted to capture the comfort that comes from having a friend and it doesn't mean that the world is no longer cruel it doesn't mean the bad things don't happen it doesn't mean that there isn't sorrow it just means that you have a friend to weather it all and I I wanted to capture that. There's that sense of comfort. Like, okay, this horrible thing happened, but guess what? I just get to talk to you or I get to sit in silence with you. And that's it. Yeah. And when you're separated after having had this incredible bond, I wanted to show that after many years, you do sometimes just pick up where you left off. I said the time hasn't passed. because it's like as if the bond is like ingrained in you. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

You definitely feel that. And it is, it is cool how it, the book spans like from the 40s until technically, like at the very end, we're in the 2020s even. So it spans so much of their friendship. And I don't always read books that span that much time. But every time I do, I'm like, it is just really cool to think about. long term and long form the way that your friendships can like kind of come in and out of your life even when the people still really matter to you at the same time so i i really enjoyed that and just all the things that they had to weather together without getting into any of the spoilers

but i did i really loved that thank you every time i start a new book i say to myself this time I'm going to have the timeline be one year, one day, even, one week. I'm so tired of doing decades. And inevitably, all three times, I end up doing decades. And then I have to manage decades. Right. Yeah. It's a little harder.

Yeah. It's just like it's kind of clearly it's kind of what naturally comes to you. Like it's something that does work for you, even if you're not like thinking of it. when you start writing. Yeah, I think you're right, because otherwise I wouldn't keep doing it. Yeah. You know, sometimes you need the perspective to see the whole tale because, for example, if I had ended the book when Ellie and Homa are 24, we would have ended the book with them

estranged. Yes. Their friendship was ended. But because we go, well, we literally go until they're in there late. 70s in some way. So we see that the story didn't end when they were in their 20s. The friendship didn't end. The friendship came back. Yeah. And it's cool to think about how that can happen. And kind of like what Ellie ends up doing for Homa later on is so important and valuable. But because like because of what their friendship had been for so long, it was kind of like a no-brainer

for her at that point, which I. really liked. Yeah. Yeah. Well, obviously I loved it. I hope everyone loves hearing about it too from you, but I have been asking people at the end if there are any books they've read recently that they love. Yeah, it's it's hard to answer this question because there's so many. But you know, one that's really just sat with me. It came out. It came out this year, I believe, It's called No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister. And what's fascinating about this novel is it's a novel, about a novel. It's about a manuscript and how different people read the manuscript

and what reading the manuscript means to them. That's fascinating. That's fantastic idea. Yeah. Yes. I love when people play with perspective that way. Yeah. It plays with perspective.

way and it shows you the relationship between a writer and a reader and just that same manuscript can mean different things to different people depending on where they are in their lives and what they've just experienced and I just think it's so beautifully written. Yeah, that is that's really cool. I can't remember who I was just talking to about it, but that's always kind of blown my mind that like when a person, when an author goes to write, they have like the vision or the visual in their mind of what they're like getting out onto the page. And then every single person though, like our minds are all creating even just different visuals no matter how well it's like described or how like real the setting feels. We're all making all these technically very different versions. And like no one's version is

exactly the same. And we can't even like we can't even know what every. There's no way to ever know like all the different ways that the story was like seen in someone else's head. And then there's the whole part of like interpreting art and how interpretations of it are wildly different and people connect with different stuff. And that's always really fascinating. So I need to check that. I need to check that book out for sure. Yeah. It touches upon that concept.

And I love how to describe that. Yeah. Because it's it's there. It's so personal. It's so subjective. the way we interpret. And at the same time, it's like there's one book, right? But in a way, there's like a multitude of books. Like you said, each reader receives that same book through a very different lens. And it's a very individual experience. Yeah. Yeah. It's so cool. I love that.

Yeah, I'm going to add that to my TVR for sure. Where can people follow you to stay out to date with everything. Well, you can follow me on Instagram. I am at Marjan Kamali 7 because there are others and we actually follow each other. Oh, that's so cool. I know. Isn't that cool? A couple of foreign Iran and I follow them and they follow me. So fun. I know. I know. So definitely Instagram and yes, Facebook, Twitter. Yeah, my website. That's just my name. Yeah. Yeah.

I will put those links in the show notes for everyone. And thank you so much for talking with me about your book. Thank you. This was a very fun and meaningful conversation. Thank you for having me.