City of Lies

The premise of this book is in the title: City of Lies - Love, sex, death and the search for truth in Tehran. To expand on this a little - everyone is living a life slightly different to the life they portray, and differently than the regime want them to live.

The book and the stories it tells all revolve around Vali Asr Street - which runs through the middle of Tehran roughly north/south and connects the neighbourhoods which are the location of the individual stories. The beginning of each chapter identifies a street and a neighbourhood.

However, given all the peoples names and identifiable features of each story have been changed, the device is more of a gimmick than a basis for unifying the stories.

So to each chapter follows a central character, sometimes two, who lives a lie, or lies about their life. The author documents her source info in an appendix - and clearly states when her information is first hand or second hand, reported in the media etc, and advises when her story is from a single character or a composite of several stories. This sometimes makes the stories seem over the top, or exaggerated, but really it was the best way to make the narrative work.

And the stories - lots of variation from prostitutes to a high society lady who still yearns for her old lifestyle; aging thug to a gay militia man; crooked cop to drug dealers and addicts, and others about what normal life is for youth in Iran - at odds with the intolerant religious leaders who are in control.

I think the most telling aspects were the gap between rich and poor, and the way that bribery and corruption set the scene for a spectrum of outcomes when laws are broken; the prevalence for plastic surgery amongst the young, and the morality police and their effect on the behaviour of people - not in any way preventing normal behaviour from happening, but making it underground or carried out in secret, which really just encourages all the more!

I found this bit particularly funny, only because of the reality. When I spent a short time in Tehran I saw lots of people having picnics in the strangest places!

On a small patch of scrubland beside the motorway, a family had laid out a sofrehi, picnic blanket, and were eating abgoosht, a hearty peasant dish of meat, beans and potatoes; nothing could get in the way of an Iranian and a picnic, not even six lanes of roaring traffic.