Arash, an idealistic young man driven by nostalgia and romantic notions of a country he left as a child, returns to Iran to start a new life and do his share to help rebuild the country. As he explores the streets of Tehran, he finds a society plagued by contradictions and confronts a disgruntled and cynical populace for whom the promises of the Revolution never materialized. With dwindling resources, he finds himself paralyzed in the face of a system he cannot change. A seemingly benign gesture of defiance draws the attention of the authorities and leads to his imprisonment in the notorious Evin prison. In this moving and often disturbing novel, Noori paints a dark and foreboding picture of the harsh realities of life in the Islamic Republic.