The Immortals of Tehran: Family, revolution, and the shadows of history

The novel addresses Khomeini’s role in inciting the revolution from exile but assigns the main role in its implementation to the middle class, specifically represented by the Torkash-Vand family, who frequently clashed with the village cleric, Mullah Ali, over his opportunism and attempts to impose backward views on the people. After the Shah’s immediate fall, Ahmad was accused by the Revolutionary Guard of involvement in the killing and torture of several Shah supporters due to a vehement parliamentary speech against them. Later, because of his contributions to opposing the Shah’s regime, he received a reduced nine-year prison sentence, which ended a year before the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq War. In this way, he became merely one of the “cats” who played a major role in ending the Shah’s rule—only to allow the clergy to succeed him and imprison those same “cats.”