Memoirous

Recently on PBS ln American Experience there has aired a two-part series on the taking of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and what became the American Hostage Crisis that lasted 444 days. Pretty much the course of American policy in Iran since then has been stuck. Very little has changed diplomatically. That period of time was the background for my novel Cloud of Witnesses about a boy growing up in rural poverty in southern Ohio. What, you may ask, has the Iranian Revolution got to do with Athens, Ohio. Well, I was a student then at Ohio University and there were many internationals on campus and from there I spun out a story about an unlikely friendship between 2 boys coming to terms with their own feelings of being an outsider. One was an exile within his own family and the other was truly learning that he wouldn’t be able to go back, that home was out of reach. I tend to start first with an idea and then flesh it out with story. Sort of like a philosophical challenge or...

New Title for Young People Features Iranian/American Relations Cloud of Witnesses by Jane Hertenstein (ages 11- 14, published by Golden Alley Press) is set in Athens, Ohio during the Iran Hostage Crisis. Roland Tanner is a hillbilly, someone from rural Appalachia, and often feels like an outsider within his family and community. Tested as gifted, he is bused from his rural trailer to the town middle school where he meets Hassan, another outsider, whose family has relocated to from Iran to Athens where his father works at the university. The friendship is challenged when hostages are taken when the U.S. Embassy in Tehran is overrun in November 1979. While crowds in the streets of Tehran chanted “Death to America,” news outlets depict incidents of Americans burning the Iranian flag. Roland is forced to examine his alliances and loyalties. In many ways Roland and Hassan have a lot in common—both feel like they don’t belong. Hassan: “The kids at school think I’m a terror...

Khomeini waves to followers as he appears on the balcony of his headquarters in Tehran on February 2, 1979. February 1, 2019 marks the 40 th year of Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Iran from exile. What does this mean to the rest of the world? Many leaders in the Middle East placated the West by calling for democracy and modernization—while at the same time maintaining a regime of suppression and human right abuse. Today we can point to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, colloquially known as MbS. In the 1970s America supported Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. In 1979 the Shah abdicated his throne and Ayatollah Khomeini helped establish the Islamic Republic. https://www.rferl.org/a/khomeini-tehran-iran/29739627.html So what does this have to do with Appalachia, with Cloud of Witnesses ? Though Cloud of Witnesses feels contemporary, it is a historical novel set 1979/1980. A sub-story in the novel has to do with a young ...