cover image LEAP OF FAITH: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life

LEAP OF FAITH: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life

Queen Noor, . . Miramax, $25.95 (480pp) ISBN 978-0-7868-6717-2

Anyone who loved The King and I will readily warm to the love story of Queen Noor and the late King Hussein of Jordan. Born in America in 1951 as Lisa Halaby, Noor came from a wealthy, well-connected family and was part of Princeton's first co-ed class. Her father's aviation business produced a chance meeting with King Hussein in 1976, and a year or two later Noor realized the king was courting her. He was 41, she was 26. The rumor mills buzzed: was she the next Grace Kelly? Before long, the king renamed her Noor ("light" in Arabic), and she converted to Islam. They were married in the summer of 1978. From this point on, her story is mostly his, mainly covering his attempts to broker peace in the Middle East. There are meetings with Arafat, Saddam Hussein, American presidents and other leaders. Noor details Hussein's struggles to create Arab unity and his vision of peaceful coexistence with Israel. Her own activities—developing village-based economic self-sufficiency projects and improving Jordan's medical, educational and cultural facilities—take second place to her husband's struggles on the world stage. And while she occasionally acknowledges her domestic difficulties, Noor is careful not to allow personal problems to become any more than asides. Her pleasing memoir ends with the king's death after his struggle with cancer, although readers may suspect that this smart, courageous woman will remain a world presence for years to come. (On sale Mar. 18)

Forecast: The legions of royalty fans will clamor for this long-awaited memoir, and with the queen's appearances on Good Morning America and Larry King Live, an excerpt in this month's Vogue and ubiquitous reviews, it should draw readers.

Correction:PW erred in its FYI to the review of Regarding the Pain of Others, by Susan Sontag (Forecasts, Feb. 17), both in stating that certain war photos appeared in late editions of Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas, one subject of Sontag's book, and in misconstruing a New Yorker letter by Woolf scholar Jane Marcus as a criticism of Sontag's words about the Woolf book. Our apologies to Sontag and Marcus.