Debra was a great writer, but not so much a great speaker. I was sad to find out that she was not Iranian by blood but by marriage. This took a huge bite out of the crisis, the autobiography and my experience reading the book. When I went to hear this author speak However, her speech drug on. I found both the book and her speech more of a story about her life than about the crisis or about Iran and its history. I was required me to read this book in college, and of course, because my college published the book I had to buy the specific ISBN from them. I am glad to have read the book, but not to own it. I did not find any great intelligence or purpose in owning this book. If you are iranian or maybe interested in hostages, as I am not, then this book is for you.

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.

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

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.