My Name is Mahtob by Mahtob Mahmoody

Mahtob Mahmoody – does the name seem familiar? Perhaps ‘Betty Mahmoody’ rings more bells? How many of us hearing that name see actress Sally Field in our mind’s eye? Betty’s book Not Without My Daughter was published in 1987, just a year after she and her daughter, Mahtob, escaped from Iran, where Betty’s husband had held them against their will for two years. The movie based on the book came out just a few years later. In 1992, Betty wrote a follow-up book, For the Love of a Child, that described the events in their own lives as mother and daughter readjusted to life in Michigan, and also described Betty’s work as an advocate for parents in similar situations, and her push for changes in state and federal laws concerning international abductions.

But that’s enough about what went before. Now in her late thirties, Mahtob feels able to write her own story of her life before, during and after the events of 1984-86. She tells us that she has never read her mother’s books, nor seen the movie, on the advice of a wise older lady who worked for her mother’s German publisher. That way, her memories are her own, and are from her own perspective as a child, rather than being coloured by either her mother’s very different perspective as a wife and mother, or distorted by the images and dialogue of the movie.

Mahtob’s story is gripping. The years before and during the time in Iran are covered in the early chapters. She then tells the story of her childhood and adolescent years, coping with many moves and a lot of overseas travel with her mother along with the constant fear that her father would make good on his threats to abduct her and take her back to Iran. She describes how she moved from hatred of her father to forgiveness, knowing how important that was for her own mental and spiritual health, but how that forgiveness was tested when she learnt that a filmmaker was making a documentary with her father to counter the claims made against him in her mother’s book and in the movie.

Mahtob battles illness at the same time as struggling to avoid the documentary makers who want to bring father and daughter together for their production, and this while trying to cope with university study. It is a physically and emotionally draining period in her life.

I enjoyed reading Mahtob’s book. Sometimes it jumped around a bit from the present to the past, but not so much that you lost track. The ending, which is the text of an email she wrote to a friend, seemed a little flat and an odd way to end, but in no way spoilt the book as a whole. It was a good read, and a satisfying update to a fascinating story. 

Posted by Jessie Moir

Catalogue link: My Name is Mahtob