The Lion Women of Tehran

The novel is shaped by the complex friendship between the two protagonists, Ellie and Homa. Though their relationship goes through phases of closeness and separation, both physically and emotionally, their love for each other endures. These bonds suggest that friendship can be as important, and enduring, as the bonds of family or marriage.

The powerful friendship between Ellie and Homa seems almost predestined, with Homa appearing like an answer to Ellie’s prayer for family and companionship. Their bond is cemented not only through the shared experience of school and childhood games but also by how their contrasting lives complement one another. Ellie provides a balance to Homa’s high spirits and a friendly rival to Homa’s competitive spirit. Homa enriches Ellie’s life by enfolding Ellie into her family, providing a sense of belonging Ellie longs for. The nurturing power of their friendship is expressed through Ellie’s joy at learning to cook and the simple magic she perceives in chopping an onion: Friendship is an alchemy that transforms Ellie, just as food is transformed through cooking.

Ellie, unlike Homa, doesn’t initially understand the lasting power of young adult friendships. She sees her relationship with Homa as something that must fade as they leave childhood. As a teenager, she thinks, “Our bond should have been impossible to fray and then disintegrate. But as time took us each in a different direction, it was astonishingly simple for our connection to dissolve” (66). This early separation foreshadows their later estrangement—what Ellie calls ghaar—which continues when Ellie moves to the US. Both separations are easier for Homa to move past, as she doesn’t believe that friendships dissolve. She continues to think of Ellie as her close friend, even when Ellie moves out of their Tehran neighborhood, and she seeks to reunite by joining Ellie’s school. She speaks of Ellie as a dear friend throughout her adulthood, to the point that Bahar feels she knows Ellie already. The pink notebook, the gift from Ellie, which Homa keeps and eventually returns filled with her mother’s recipes, represents Homa’s enduring affection. Through the notebook, Homa shows Ellie that real friendship can persist despite obstacles and separation.

Homa demonstrates that loyalty is key to bonds of friendship. Homa remains loyal to the idea of their friendship even when they are separated, and her wish to protect Ellie from harm is the reason she resists interrogation and avoids contact later, after she is out of prison. Ellie shows loyalty in her own fashion, particularly in the teapot she purchases because it reminds her of their early friendship, but Ellie’s feelings are complicated by guilt in a way that Homa’s aren’t. Homa demonstrates that the choice to sacrifice oneself can show the depth of friendship. While the presumed friendship between the US and Iran is broken by the hostage crisis, Ellie demonstrates that she has learned this lesson about loyalty and friendship through her choice to take in Bahar. Ellie again shows her loyalty by hosting Leily’s 18th birthday party, and she speaks of Homa with admiration, even wearing the necklace Homa gave her as a childhood gift well into her later years.