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Living In Hell: A True Odyssey of a Woman's Struggle in Islamic Iran Against Personal and Political Forces

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This book is an amazing account of an Iranian woman who learned the value of civilized society the hard way. To her it was not some college exercise in philosophy, it was life or death. I cannot stress enough what a unique perspective this book brings. Although raised as a devout Muslim, she reasoned, on her own at a young age, the difference between the "True Message" of God, and religious manipulation.
Although at first the book may sound like a long series of complaints, it makes some extremely serious points. I read it cover to cover and then had to take a couple of days to think about it. If she were talking about our society, we might consider her a chronic complainer. We would, as a caveat, automatically make the assumption our system itself was correct. Instead I consider her one of the first to see the overall problem and expose it for what it is, a barbaric culture which has failed to develop into a modern cooperative society.
After all this author has been through in her life most people would be completely devastated and unable to function. She, on the other hand, still believes in a civilized world and wishes to do all she can to promote peace.
This is a book that screams for women's rights, and helps you understand why they are an absolutely essential part of any civilized society. I have puzzled for years over why fanatic behavior exists and is tolerated. This book shows first hand a direct connection between how women are treated and how their lack of a voice in family dynamics cause high numbers of insecure children. The insecure grow up to be selfish and self centered, totally lacking a self generated moral compass. Out of these insecure children grow the suicide bombers of tomorrow, who, unlike this author, do not understand that there is no reward in heaven for being manipulated in the name of religion.

A frightening memoir of growing up under Iran's male-dominated oppressors, confirming
that the mad ayatollahs have, in 27 years, wrecked a once-vibrant nation and
destroyed its culture.
Omid's Iran is a dysfunctional society in a "coma of ignorance," led by "mindless fanatics."
Males are obsessed with money and hymens. Women, if they aren't victims, have sold
out and joined the Pasdar spies who hound female violators of the ayatollahs' decrees.
Throughout, Omid displays numerous perceptive, valuable observations: Ayatollah
Khomeini's command of Farsi was so weak he could barely be understood; his mullahs took
the Shah's palaces after the overthrow, then cornered the black market for food to become
"even richer" than the Shah; 70 percent of Iran's villages have been destroyed or abandoned
under the mullahs. She also harbors no illusions about Iran's wickedness: "If Iran becomes a nuclear power," she warns, "the world should start digging,
either their shelters or their graves..." What is most riveting, however, is her striking journal of personal pain within her abusive family-her brother
forced her into persistent incest, her wealthy father humiliated her and abandoned the family to destitution and she was forced to battle her way out of
one arranged engagement after another. Little wonder she has emerged on the far side, in Vancouver, as a brittle manic-depressive finding it difficult to
outrun her past. Omid wrote most of Living in Hell in a single month while under a therapist's care, imbuing the work with a powerful sense of urgency.
Passionate and commanding.
Omid, Ghazal
LIVING IN HELL: A True Odyssey
of a Woman's Struggle in Islamic Iran
Against Personal and Political Forces
Park Avenue Publishers (488 pp.)
$26.95
July 30, 2005
ISBN: 0-9759683-0-0
-Kirkus Discoveries
Kirkus Discoveries, VNU US Literary Group, 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 646-654-4602 fax 646-654-4706
discoveries@kirkusreviews.com

Seldom do I read a book that I have a hard time putting down. This is one of those books. Ms. Omid's story from her childhood in Iran to her struggles in her adopted country of Canada is the story of a life that most of us can not even imagine. Still, through all of her problems, Ms. Omid stands out as a woman who has the courage of her convictions to carry her through adversity to the place where she is today! I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the status of women in the middle east and to those who simply wish to read a story about how inner strength can lift any of us out of intolerable situations.

Ghazal Omid is one of humanity's treasures. She faced crushing poverty in her childhood in Iran, even with a father who usually was flush with cash but found little of it to spend on his own family. She was abused, mistreated, ignored, and utilized by family members only for what she could be bullied into giving up.

Standing up to the Revolutionary government in Iran in her daily life, her obstinate refusal to parrot the dictates of the Mullahs ended up with her receiving the tender mention of her name by Ayatollah Khemeni at Friday prayers as an "American patriot", tantamount to a death sentence by the nation's highest-ranking cleric, and plenty of the mindless myrmidons of the Revolution were inspired by the Ayatollah's words to carry it out.

Fleeing her home nation and making it eventually to Canada, Ghazal struggled with newfound difficulties of a woman raised in a controlling culture, suddenly faced with the open society of Canada, and initially had great difficulties coming to terms with her new life.

The abuse from her two horrible brothers in Canada, now devolved into the spychological abuse of a patriarchial culture in which women are regarded as burdens and not gifts to humanity, continued as Ghazal did her level best to rise above a lifetime of hideous maltreatment by the very men in her life who should have been standing up for her, protecting her, and helping her establish herself as an independent spirit in a unkind world.

Even in the face of this tremendously sad background, Ghazal decided to devote her life to help the people left behind in Iran, and to this day does everything she can do to help Iranian people, political prisoners, and resistance groups, overcome the death grip the Mullahs have on the people of her home nation.

She is an immensely strong, brilliant, and eloquent woman, and a role model of strength and determination that any woman would find inspiring.

This is a book that any woman in the West should read, to further understand the shackles hammered around the necks of women in Muslim countries, and more deeply appreciate the societies into which Western women have had the fortune to be born.

Those who have assailed this book in above commentaries completely missed the point of the book. This is no whine-fest, it is a sincere confession of a woman who seeks to make other human beings stronger by helping them realize the struggles that billions of women living in subjugation face on a daily basis.

My own life has been enriched by reading Ghazal's story, and anyone who reads her book with an open mind cannot help but come away with a different understanding of Iranian culture, and Islam in its true form, not the perverted politicized Wahabbist/Jihadist delusion that somehow a God out there is reveling in the deaths, or the sufferings, of innocents.

I purchased the book to get a picture of Iran since the revolution and life under the revolutionaries, not to get a struggle by struggle view of her personal life. I am about 1/2 way through the book and so far the vast amount of the reading has focused on the personal trials- which are daunting. Emerging is the information I was seeking on the conduct of the mullahs in Iran and how things have changed since the revolution. I am now getting an insiders view of the mind set and priorities of the more radical facets of Islam as it effects the day to day life of the Iranians. I probably should have rated the book 5 stars as it is very well written and explains in detail daily life before and after the revolution along with a view of life in a society/family where women aren't viewed as partners and equals but as property. This book is providing the information and insite I was seeking.

What a great book! This book got better with each chapter. The reality of being a female in Iran, in the not too distant past, is staggering. Young Ghazal dodged many bullets and had a hard time keeping her mouth shut which added a little spice to the story. In particular, personal battles for truth, right vs wrong and sticking up for herself in the family and school. I used to think all the Muslim women covered their beautiful hair and faces by choice and wore long hot dresses for the same reason. Unfortunately, these women have brothers, fathers and husbands that make their choices for them. Without income, birth control and education, they have no choices. Ghazal understood God at a very young age and with His guidance went forward. Without much writing experience, she did a great job putting this very deep book together.

Oklahoman Newspaper
Sunday Paper: September 14, 05.

Editor: Budd Arthur

Author outlines life in Iran

Ghazal Omid's "Living in Hell: A True Odyssey of a Woman's Struggle in Islamic Iran Against Personal and Political Forces" (Park Avenue Publishers, $26.95) warns readers that if Iran becomes a nuclear power, we should all start digging either shelters or graves.

After reading her book, this reviewer agrees. This is not an easy read and can hardly be called entertainment. Intended to be biographical, it takes a reader down a number of avenues. For instance, after a foreword by author Loretta Napoleoni, a section on Iranian politics and the mullahs, another on terrorism and Islam, a third on Iranian culture and a letter to Omid's readers, we almost begin at the beginning.

From that point, we cover her difficult childhood, family problems, life with Jewish friends, politics, the Islamic Revolution, her hellish high school years, higher education, reaching young womanhood and surviving eight years of war with Iraq.

She writes about the mobs paid to demonstrate in the streets and the women who roam the cities, looking for women or girls who have committed the slightest breach in the oppressive rules set forth by the mullah. Abducted by the secret police when campaigning for women's rights, Omid escapes by jumping from a moving car and eventually ends up in Canada.

Reading this saga is worth the effort, if just for the author's insights into Iranian and Islamic culture and the lunatic fringe that has taken charge of her native land.

__Budd Arthur

The Western world must read this gritty, ground level, first person account by an extraordinary Muslim woman; survivor of revolution, war, abduction and the the everyday horrors of life in a near-medevial, oppressive Islamic theocracy. Ms Omid, politically precocious since childhood, cuts to the chase about the origin of terrorism and how to combat it.

Ghazal Omid's Living In Hell represents autobiographical writing at its finest. In fact, it is the most captivating autobiography released in 2005. As a book enthusiast and editor for many years, I am ashamed of my past subscription to Publisher's Weekly, whose "reviewer" sliced Omid's astounding memoirs to pieces out of sexism and stupidity. In fact, it's evident that said reviewer only skimmed excerpts, as there is no way you could read this book without being completely inspired.

Living In Hell by Ghazal Omid is an Odyssey Of A Life Time: into the jaws of hell and back to the hope of love. Very few individuals in a series of lifetimes will ever experience the level of personal, emotional and physical suffering that has haunted the life of Ghazal Omid.
Knowledge unused turns into inaction developing into action aiding all those ruled by despots. Upon reading "Living In Hell" each of us carries a responsibility to act upon the recognition of this young woman's trials to reach out to all yet left behind in the grasp of tyranny.