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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
This book made me cry at the end and any book that makes me cry is worth reading!! I have little knowledge on Jewish life in the Mediterranean, but this story really helped intrigue me to learn more about Jewish history and the various types of Jews that lived in port cities in Egypt, Lebanon, Italy, and Greece. Definitely felt a connection with the author and her love for Leon, her beloved father.
Really interesting book about place, families, parents and children, and exile--Cairo isn't really the backdrop, it's as much a character as the Lagnado family.
Lagnado tells the story of her youth with a focus on her father, the man in the white sharkskin suit. The story begins in Cairo, pre-World War II. Her family is a well-to-do and sophisticated, and also Jewish. It is clear that Lagnado worships her father in many ways, and the stories she tells of his livelihood are entertaining. However, during WWII, Jews are inevitably ousted from Egypt. Along with a severe injury incurred by her father, they are off, via Europe, to the US. Lagnado shares about her family's attempts to assimilate, her own battles with her parents, cancer, and coming to peace with her life. By the end, I was wanting the book to be over, but overall, a decent memoir. I enjoyed reading about Cairo both before and during the War, it was definitely an interesting lens of the culture there!
I was initially attracted to this book because of its depiction of Egypt pre-Nasser. Still, I had planned to read the whole thing. The author's inclination to make all of the adults in her life, especially her father, into mythic figures really turned me off though, and I didn't bother with the book once they were on the boat out of Alexandria.
A moving memoir written by a woman, born in the mid -1950's to a prosperous, Jewish family in Cairo. Forced to leave Egypt in the early 1960's, they moved to Paris and then New York. Though much diminished financially, they managed to re-connect culturally with other immigrants from the Levant. I knew little of the middle eastern Jewish communities, or their customs, or that they existed for many hundreds of years. The establishment of the State of Israel and consequent tensions ultimately resulted in most residents leaving the area. This story lovingly brings to life a time and place as told through through the eyes of a young girl, and by extension those of her father with whom she was extremely close. Her teen years were spent in New York where she bridged the old and new cultures. Ultimately she became a writer for the Wall Street Journal where she wrote a feature about her family for a Father's Day issue. Response was so strong that a publisher encouraged her to write this book.
A biography of a family facing external trials as well as the ones they create themselves. It is told by the youngest daughter, and begins with her parents' first meeting, but at times spans back in time to cover her grandparents and the general history of cosmopolitan Cairo. There is also quite a bit of attention paid to food, all vivid descriptions but no recipes. While the subject matter is interesting, and the writing well done, I'm not compelled to keep reading. I'll probably finish it, but I'm not in any hurry to do so. It's due back at the library, and I'm not inclined to renew it.