Behind the Veil: An American Woman's Memoir of the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis

by Debra Johanyak

Book Overview

Married to an Iranian, and mother of two young children, Debra Johanyak was a teaching assistant at Iran's Shiraz University when the American Embassy in Tehran was taken over by militants on November... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931968381
• ISBN13: 9781931968386
• Release Date: November 2006
• Publisher: University of Akron Press
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Reveals the positive side of Iranians

I read Debra Johanyak's book because I was curious about Iran, especially after the rioting last summer. I had read "Not Without My Daughter," by Betty Mahmoody, many years ago. Both are good books. Each presents a different view of a country that we in the West consider a mystery. Johanyak and Mahmoody were married to Iranians, had children, and were stuck in Iran. But after that, the similarities end. Mahmoody's book is packed with action and reads like a spy thriller. The characters are sinister and her situation frightening. Johanyak's reads more like a diary. The Iranians she describes are loving and much like the typical American family only in some ways even closer. She writes vividly of life in a small Iranian town, far from the riots in Tehran. But eventually she cannot escape the tumult. I felt that I was right there with the author during her Iranian adventure.

A great look into life in Iran

This is a definitely the book to read for a new look at Iran and the Irani people. The author is telling her story - she goes to Iran in the late 1970s as a young wife of an Iranian man she met and married at college in the US. This isn't the story of forced conversion or one that makes life in Iran look terrible. Rather the author finds she loves Iran for its people and culture, but she has problems adjusting. Her new family is very accepting of her - a foreign, non-Muslim bride and her husband never seems to fall into the Muslim sterotype of repressing women. Actually he pays so little attention to that and to politics, that is hard for her to get his take on anything and thus certain issues she might have avoided come to pass. She starts teaching English part-time and is at home with her two sons, part time. On their first stay, it is the medical situation that sends her running back to the US. In her first stay in Iran, she feels no pressure to take the veil, cover her head, etc. For her, it is an emergency surgery that freaks her out. Her husband eventually comes back to the States as well, and they manage to work out their differences and they go back to Iran about a year later. By this time, Iran has a new government - the Ayatollah has returned. At first, this seems to be much the same Iran, and she goes back to teaching and starts working on a graduate degree. But mounting tensions with the US, mounting religious preseuctions and then the hostage situation continues to make life difficult for her. She really fights the idea of the veil even though for her it would mean protection. Her husband's family is extremely supportive through all of this, although they must have found her resistance to the veil extremely strange. The veil had not been mandatory until the return of the Ayatollah and the issue was that the author could pass for Iranian and so her American identity was not always clear - making her look like she was flaunting the government, rather than simply following her own cultural norms. It is eventually the tensions and hostile attitudes that make her use the veil in public as protection that makes her finally insist on leaving Iran with her kids. Her husband does join her in the States, but they can't manage to make it work and they end up divorced this time. She hasn't been back to Iran since. This really is an important book to read because it gives a human perspective to the Irani people. Her in-laws and the people she associates with are all people she finds connections with and enjoys. She always feels accepted by her husband's family for who she is and not expected to change. Yet the changing government of Iran and their anti-American attitudes made it hard on her. Her opinions had to be shielded for fear of retribution and even her graduate papers got her into trouble.

way to go

I got it very quickly after the order. I am pleased with everything. The book looked good, brand new. I am very pleased.

Highly recommended for up-close and personal insight into Iran's dynamic character

Written by Debra Johanyak, Behind the Veil: An American Woman's Memoir of the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis is an outstanding personal testimony by a wife and mother with dual Iranian and American citizenship. Married to an Iranian man, she lived in Iran and taught English before and after the 1979 revolution, and watched the events of the American embassy hostage crisis with trepidation. Her husband's family embraced her warmly, yet the building pressure from Islamic fundamentalists placed heavy strain on her daily life and her hopes of staying. She also came to terms to her identity as a Christian in an Islamic country, and had to learn to balance acceptance of traditional customs with her own feminist values. Eventually, despite the support and good character of so many fellow individuals, she had to leave Iran due to threat of violence; Behind the Veil chronicles her physical and spiritual pilgrimage, her memories good and bad of the nation's people, and her insights into cultural and historical gulfs. Highly recommended for up-close and personal insight into Iran's dynamic character, as well as for the fascinating story of the author's search for her own path.