cover image The Peacock Princess: The Saga of an American Woman Held Captive by a Brutal Royal Family in Revolutionary Iran

The Peacock Princess: The Saga of an American Woman Held Captive by a Brutal Royal Family in Revolutionary Iran

Sara Harris. Cool Hand Communications Inc., $19.99 (321pp) ISBN 978-1-56790-006-4

Bahram Mossallai, an Iranian prince, was a fellow student at UCLA when 18-year-old Barbara fell in love with him. But his charm vanished when she arrived in Tehran to marry him and found an unrecognizable tyrant. He demanded her subservience, her acceptance of Muslim ways, his regular beatings and sexual violations. After seven years, she was able to buy her freedom and return to the U.S. by leaving her only son with him. She was free to leave with her two daughters, whom he had beaten, molested and terrorized. But the girls did not adjust to life in the U.S. and both returned to their father, only to be shocked anew by his cruelty and contempt. Yet for a time, one became an ardent Muslim, joining in the uprisings that deposed the Shah only to be subsequently horrified by the religious violence under Ayatollah Khomeini. Both girls, after various dramatic misadventures, eventually married happily in the U.S., as did their mother. This extraordinarily intimate account is also a lucid portrayal of the religious and social climate under both the Shah and Khomeini, and the general hostility toward the West. (Sept.)