Most of the plot occurs in the narrator's home, a huge early 20th-century-style Iranian mansion in which three wealthy families live under the tyranny of a paranoid patriarch, Uncle.

The story's narrator (nameless in the novel but called Saeed in the TV series) is a high school student in love with his cousin Layli, Dear Uncle's daughter.

A multitude of supporting characters, including police investigators, government officials, Indians, housewives, a medical doctor, a butcher, a sycophantic preacher, servants, and a shoeshine man also appear throughout the development of the story.

Loosely based on the author's real life experiences and his love for the daughter of a wealthy aristocrat, My Uncle Napoleon story instantly became a cultural reference point and its characters national icons of the '70s.

Although the series has been banned in Iran since the revolution it is still watched, and has been released on DVD by Pars Video, Taraneh Records, and Chehreh Nama.