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36 reviews for:
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World
Lucette Lagnado
3.87 AVERAGE
36 reviews for:
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World
Lucette Lagnado
3.87 AVERAGE
Interesting family memoir about life in Cairo, being uprooted to Paris and then New York. Love the Cairo descriptions--although they tend to get a bit repetitive--and whilst I'm not a big memoir reader, enjoyed this book for the most part. Lagnado gets the atmosphere of what I'd imagine Cairo to be like--would so love to visit there!--but as the story progresses it kind of loses steam for me. This is probably not the fault of Lagnado and her story of her Jewish family's forced exit from the country and city they loved, but more due to the fact that it's a memoir. I just never enjoy memoir's as much as straight non-fiction due to the fact that writer is always talking about themselves, their family--I never quite trust it as much as I might if it was a biography written by someone not trying to describe their memories or various family members. Maybe it's just my own deep seeded thoughts about memoirs at work again with The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit?
After a slow start, this tale becomes a page-turner when the Lagnados are forced to leave Egypt following Nasser's rise to power. Stateless and unsure of their destiny, the story of the family's trek from Cairo to Paris to New York (where the streets most definitely are not paved with gold) is beautifully told by the youngest daughter, LouLou. Once here, amidst constant poverty and illness, they start again, never overcoming their grief over the loss of the lives they left behind.
Jewish banishment from Egypt is so very interesting, but I just can't do memoirs.
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
I love long book titles. They aren’t good for search engine optimization, and maybe they aren’t fun to work with if you are designing book covers, but I just love them. Not sure why, but those colons in the middle just make me swoon.
The long title isn’t the reason I picked up Lucette Lagnado’s The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World. I grabbed it because it was about an area of the world (and a people) that I don’t know much about, and I’m always looking to learn more. Considering the tumultuous goings-on in Egypt right now, I wanted to read about what life was like there in earlier in history (but not too early, I’ve learned enough about the pyramids).
Lucette Lagnado is a journalist by trade, and she knows her way around a sentence. Her book was captivating, reading more like fiction at times than as the very real saga of her parents exile from Egypt and France. She takes turns talking about her mother, her father, and the family as a unit, and for this reason, it was a little hard to follow the timeline every once in awhile. It didn’t make the book less enjoyable, but I did find myself on more than one occasion flipping back a few pages for clarification and firm dates.
The part of the book that I enjoyed the most was the relationship between the author and the man in the white sharkskin suit himself, her father. As someone that is lucky enough to have a good relationship with my immediate and extended family, I’m always interested in reading about family dynamics in different cultures or backgrounds. Lagnado (or “LouLou, her childhood nickname”) was close with her father and had a very different relationship with him than he did with his other children. She did a fantastic job at slowly uncovering those other relationships, learning about herself, her father and her siblings while she went. Writing about real people that are close to you, it could be easy to gloss over shortcomings or emphasize good traits; Lagnado balances the good and bad, taking the time to let her father as a character to develop in all dimensions.
When I looked up the author online, I saw that she had written a sequel of sorts to The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit that focuses on her mother’s childhood and background in the same way. I think that the speed with which I added The Arrogant Years to my to-read pile is the best endorsement I can give to Sharkskin. Memoirs about a stranger’s family can be very well-executed or not so much. Lagnado’s book falls firmly into the former camp.
(Note: This review is copied/pasted from my blog Nonfictionado.)
The long title isn’t the reason I picked up Lucette Lagnado’s The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World. I grabbed it because it was about an area of the world (and a people) that I don’t know much about, and I’m always looking to learn more. Considering the tumultuous goings-on in Egypt right now, I wanted to read about what life was like there in earlier in history (but not too early, I’ve learned enough about the pyramids).
Lucette Lagnado is a journalist by trade, and she knows her way around a sentence. Her book was captivating, reading more like fiction at times than as the very real saga of her parents exile from Egypt and France. She takes turns talking about her mother, her father, and the family as a unit, and for this reason, it was a little hard to follow the timeline every once in awhile. It didn’t make the book less enjoyable, but I did find myself on more than one occasion flipping back a few pages for clarification and firm dates.
The part of the book that I enjoyed the most was the relationship between the author and the man in the white sharkskin suit himself, her father. As someone that is lucky enough to have a good relationship with my immediate and extended family, I’m always interested in reading about family dynamics in different cultures or backgrounds. Lagnado (or “LouLou, her childhood nickname”) was close with her father and had a very different relationship with him than he did with his other children. She did a fantastic job at slowly uncovering those other relationships, learning about herself, her father and her siblings while she went. Writing about real people that are close to you, it could be easy to gloss over shortcomings or emphasize good traits; Lagnado balances the good and bad, taking the time to let her father as a character to develop in all dimensions.
When I looked up the author online, I saw that she had written a sequel of sorts to The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit that focuses on her mother’s childhood and background in the same way. I think that the speed with which I added The Arrogant Years to my to-read pile is the best endorsement I can give to Sharkskin. Memoirs about a stranger’s family can be very well-executed or not so much. Lagnado’s book falls firmly into the former camp.
(Note: This review is copied/pasted from my blog Nonfictionado.)
An interesting family memoir. The author paints a picture of her father as a dapper, educated and worldly Jewish business man in Egypt in the 1940's. After WW2 and the fall of King Farouk with the rise of the Nassar dictatorship, his family must flee. From Cairo, Paris and then to New York, this families path to immigration is marked with pride, tradition, faith and tragedy. A good read.
This book is beautifully written and difficult to put down. Lagnado does an excellent job of telling of her family's journey. I couldn't help but celebrate their joys and cry at their sorrows. I have so many more questions about my own family, who experienced a similar journey to the US. This is one of those books that will stick with me for a very long time.
An absolutely breathtaking novel that completely sweeps you off your feet, taking you straight back to old Cairo and all the magic that surrounded it. A new all time favorite!
(ps.I loved how it wasn’t biased and equally appreciated both sides)
(ps.I loved how it wasn’t biased and equally appreciated both sides)
This book was great! The writing was just so interesting and well thought out. The stories were personal, built the narrative, and just moved along. It was a great tale of the a world I otherwise would have not known about or seen. It was beatiful and magical and just really gripping story of LouLou and her family. I'm a bit at a lost for words about this book, other than it's a must read. My one hold up with the book is the phrases of French and Arabic she uses, which at first i like and are neat but then get a bit old and sometimes are translated it seems and it's confusing about what her parents are saying to her. But that aside it's an amazing book worth reading!