Title: Crown of Ashes
Author: Vanessa
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 9781543421422
Pages: 344
Genre: Family & Relationships / Marriage
Reviewed by: Barbara Bamberger Scott
Pacific Book Review
Love, betrayal, war, religion and greater loyalties are interwoven in a woman’s courageous account of her tempestuous marriage to a Syrian Muslim.
In the late 1970s, the author, who identifies herself only as Vanessa, fell in love with a handsome fellow university student Feiras. Her feelings were reciprocated; the two soon decided to marry, though such a cross-cultural and dual-religious union would obviously cause problems—problems the young starry-eyed couple felt strong enough to overcome. Vanessa moved to Syria, and not long afterward, her sister met Feiras’brother and they too were married. After only a brief period of happiness, life for both American women began to deteriorate. Both husbands were unfaithful, taking it as their right. Both were capable of violence. The brothers’ mother never reconciled to the new foreign brides; relationships within the Syrian family were strained to their limits. Feiras took a steady girlfriend but kept insisting that he would never leave Vanessa; meanwhile Vanessa, feeling exiled after her sister returned to the US, gradually became totally alienated from her husband. She bore him two sons, though, and that invoked her loyalty to the clan and to her wandering spouse. For more than thirty years, Vanessa endured chaotic changes, rarely enjoying a sense of financial or marital security, raising her boys and trying to accept her circumstances. Then the civil war broke out, and everything fell apart at once.
Vanessa, who is fluent in several languages and has run her own ESL institute, tells her harrowing tale with verve. She recounts having come to terms with Islam, with the acceptance of God’s will, without, however, relinquishing her sense of independence as an American woman. Both she and her sister rebelled in various ways to the domination of the men they married, and both bore up under the cold, even cruel, consequences. But never did she abandon her children, and always put their safety before her own.
The author’s message “to all the submissive women in the world” is that when life wants to break you, as so many times happened to her, “Don’t let it.” It is a brave banner, and her book is a testament to her determination to carry it.
